A focus on the asian carp issue

By Becky Brooks

news@gazettepublishingco.com

Being in what some would call a land­locked Marine busi­ness does not keep Cory Bur­roughs immune from the effects of what Asian Carp enter­ing Lake Erie could do to his mar­ket, but despite con­stant atten­tion to the issue he is not overly concerned.

Bur­roughs, whose fam­ily busi­ness Bur­roughs Marine Inc., in Clyde, is located 8 miles from San­dusky Bay and 8 to 10 miles from the San­dusky River, said his cus­tomers have shared concerns.

The fam­ily marine busi­ness and ser­vice sits com­fort­ably in the mid­dle of corn fields instead of water.

His cus­tomers include char­ter cap­tains, boat own­ers and even the Ohio Depart­ment of Nat­ural Resources. Bur­roughs as of Oct. 1 was Evinrude’s top sales­man in Ohio and Bur­roughs also has the out­board motor company’s mas­ter tech­ni­cian award. Nation­wide, the rural busi­ness rates 18th in sales for the Evin­rude com­pany, Bur­roughs said.

“We do a lot of repow­ers,” Bur­roughs said about ren­o­vat­ing a boats power with a new motor.

Cory Bur­roughs is a mas­ter tech­ni­cian as cer­ti­fied by Evin­rude and a top sales­man of the out­board motor in Ohio.

Bur­roughs said Asian carp issues are a con­cern for his boat customers.

The good news for the sum­mer, how­ever, is that no Asian carp have been located in Lake Erie or the waters of North­west Ohio, accord­ing to Rich Carter, spokesman for the Ohio Depart­ment of Nat­ural Resources. “There is not evi­dence of young fish that would indi­cate repro­duc­tion,” he also pointed out in October.

Carter said after a sum­mer of mul­ti­ple agen­cies con­duct­ing fish­ing and test­ing, his agency will now look at reports from Ohio, Michi­gan, Canada and Penn­syl­va­nia to deter­mine the next strate­gic steps in deal­ing with Asian carp.

“We are evac­u­at­ing our next step for­ward,” he added.

Over the sum­mer, the ODNR, Michi­gan Depart­ment of Nat­ural Resources (MDNR) and U.S. Fish and Wildlife Ser­vice (USFWS) col­lab­o­rated to assess the cur­rent sta­tus of big­head and sil­ver carp within west­ern Lake Erie bays and select trib­u­taries, accord­ing to an ODNR report.

Lab­o­ra­tory results received late sum­mer indi­cated the pres­ence of Asian carp envi­ron­men­tal DNA (eDNA) in six of the 417 water sam­ples col­lected in August 2011. Four sam­ples from San­dusky Bay, in Ohio waters, tested pos­i­tive for big­head carp eDNA, while two sam­ples from north Maumee Bay, in Michi­gan waters, were pos­i­tive for sil­ver carp eDNA. The find­ings indi­cate the pres­ence of genetic mate­r­ial left behind by the species, such as scales, excre­ment or mucous, but not the estab­lish­ment of Asian carp in Lake Erie.

The search for Asian Carp has not been lim­ited to wildlife and nat­ural resources.

The United States Depart­ment of the Inte­rior, U.S. Geo­log­i­cal Sur­vey also reported in a press release that major bod­ies of water in North­west Ohio were very hos­pitable envi­ron­ments for Asian Carp — includ­ing West­ern Lake Erie, San­dusky Bay, and the San­dusky, Maumee and Grand rivers.

The USGS reported that from expe­ri­ence if Asian carps find a home and estab­lish breed­ing in Lake Erie, it could have a grave impact on the native fish and Great Lakes economy.

So far that there is not spe­cific evi­dence of that, accord­ing to Carter.

The three types of Asian carp that breed in rivers dur­ing high sum­mer flows are the Sil­ver, Big­head and Grass carps, the USGS reported.

Accord­ing to the USGS, a study released this sum­mer found that the Maumee River, which enters west­ern Lake Erie at Toledo, is highly suit­able for Asian carp to mature and spawn.

The San­dusky River — which stretches from Upper San­dusky through Wyan­dot, Seneca, San­dusky and Erie coun­ties to San­dusky Bay — would be mod­er­ately suit­able for the inva­sive fish — as would the Grand River that enters the lake at Fair­port Har­bor, a press release noted.

In Sep­tem­ber, ODNR reported that Asian carp envi­ron­men­tal DNA (eDNA) had been detected in three of 350 water sam­ples col­lected in Maumee Bay and the Maumee River between July and Aug. 4. Sil­ver carp eDNA was detected.

In July, ODNR and other agen­cies also col­lected 150 water sam­ples from San­dusky Bay and three tested pos­i­tive for sil­ver car eDNA as well.

ODNR noted, though, that eDNA can­not ver­ify whether DNA from the inva­sive fish came from live or dead fish or from other sources such as bilge water, storm sew­ers or fish-eating birds.

The joint agen­cies also con­ducted elec­trofish­ing and tra­di­tional gill net fish­ing in San­dusky Bay and the San­dusky River in Sep­tem­ber and found no Asian carp, Carter said.

Carter said that besides that test­ing, there is other data being collected.

“There has been sam­pling of bait deal­ers through­out the Great Lakes,” he added. His agency is one wait­ing for eDNA results from those tests. The goal is to deter­mine the source of the eDNA being picked up in water sam­ples from local bod­ies of water, he added.

At present Bur­roughs in Clyde is not too con­cerned about Asian carp yet.

“For us, it prob­a­bly won’t affect us too much,” he com­mented this fall. Local fish­er­men and char­ter cap­tains are con­cerned it may change their sea­son, he com­mented. “The char­ter guys are most wor­ried about it,” he added.

“They ask about it,” he said. “What do we think about it.”

“We have heard hor­ror sto­ries,” Bur­roughs commented.

“All we can do is kind of wait and see what is going to come of it.”

Becky Brooks is Man­ag­ing Edi­tor of The Belle­vue Gazette & OCM Lake Erie Cen­tral Divi­sion. She can be reached at (419) 483‑4190, or at news@gazettepublishingco.com.

Posted by Becky Brooks on Nov 1 2012. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS Feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.