Does This Mean The Asian Carp Sleep With The Fishes?

By JoshMogerman in News on May 21, 2010 3:40PM

There is probably no good time to go swimming in the Little Calumet River…but now would be particularly bad since a two-mile stretch has been intentionally poisoned in the latest chapter of the Asian carp saga.

Wildlife officials dumped a ton (literally) of the fish poison Rotenone into the waterway near south suburban Dolton on Thursday. The floating fish will be netted and examined to see if carp are among the dead, confirming or refuting eDNA tests that showed the invasive fish in the area weeks ago. Some have expressed doubts about the cutting edge tests, including US Fish & Wildlife Service’s Charlie Wooley who has made statements which imply that he may have already made up his mind about the carp’s presence in the waterway already. "It's our hope they come up empty here so we can move this (battle) down where it belongs," Wooley said.

Others are supportive of the proactive measures, but less willing to declare the waterways carp free even if there aren’t any bigheads or silver carp among the floaters given the elusive nature of these fish.

This is now the second time we have intentionally poisoned a Chicago-area waterway to deal with this issue (as opposed to the ongoing unintentional poisoning that seems commonplace these days). The previous effort, in late 2009, stands as the biggest intentional poisoning in American history (yay, Chicagoland!). That makes this smaller scale poisoning a bit underwhelming -unless we can find a way to spice it up a bit. Anybody know what the Guinness record is for the largest Bouillabaisse?