Officials with the U.S. Fish and Wildlife say an asian carp found within eight miles of Lake Michigan last month was an ‘anomaly.’
The Asian Carp was found in the Calumet River on June 22. It had made it beyond the Army Corps electric barriers, which are intended to keep the fish from reaching the lake.
Charlie Wooley is with the Deputy Regional Director of the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service. He said they can’t explain how the fish made it past the barrier.
“We’re viewing it as an anomaly right now just due to the fact that this extensive amount of sampling that occurred over the last few weeks came up with no additional fish.”
Wooley said it’s important to understand most carp aren’t even at the electric barrier.
“One thing I want to point out is that the bulk of adult silver and bighead carp are about three locks and dams, 40 or 50 miles south of the corps electric barrier. So I don’t want your listeners to think that there are these massive amounts of silver and bighead carp that are probing the barrier all the time. That’s just not the case.”
Wooley said the Fish and Wildlife service will do further testing of the waters to monitor any progress of asian carp.
“What we are doing to increase our knowledge of what may have happened is some gene sequencing with the fish that was captured to test it and see if we can figure out where it was born, how it may have moved in the illinois waterway system, and get some background information on the origin of that fish.”
Wooley said they are treating the fish as an anomaly, and can’t explain how it got beyond the barrier.