The war on the invasive Asian carp hooked some good news over the weekend, when Lyon County Judge-Executive Wade White reported some positive trends surrounding the bio-acoustic fish fence (BAFF) installed below Barkley Dam on the Cumberland River.
According to the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, the BAFF is an experimental deterrent “designed to slow, or stop, the movement of carp through rivers and waterways” — something White and other local lawmakers have been seeking since carp began commandeering the regional biome.
Monitoring 254 tagged carp from November 1, 2020, until February 13, 2021, 57 fish crossed the BAFF when it was turned off, but only four crossed it when it was active.
Additionally, the BAFF was approached by carp 3,181 times when it was inactive, but only 612 times when it was live — perhaps suggesting the fish developed some sort of avoidance behavior.
White was told the news was promising and a critical first step in understanding the technology, but that more time is needed to complete the study. The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service wants to observe fish behavior over different seasons (spring, summer, fall, and winter), and there’s ongoing efforts to tag more carp for a larger sample size of data.
The BAFF evaluation project is a partnership with the U.S. Geological Survey, the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers (Nashville District), the Kentucky Department of Fish and Wildlife Resources, Fish Guidance Systems and the University of Minnesota.
More than 7.6 million pounds of Asian carp — bighead, silver, and grass — were removed by commercial fishers from Kentucky waters in 2020, a record-high. Prominent populations reside in Kentucky and Barkley lakes, as well most tributaries to the Ohio and Mississippi rivers, and it’s been a growing concern that first took root with the 2007 National Invasive Carp Management Plan.
The concern for carp isn’t its lack of nutritional value: only wild-caught salmon is higher in protein, and carp contains the most omega-3 fatty acids of all plentiful commercial fish. It’s also usually free of mercury and lead, and processed carp harvest waste can be transformed into mulch-like soil enhancers for local crops.
The biggest issue is its destructiveness to native fish habitats, which in west Kentucky is often bluegill, bass, catfish and crappie populations.
“The fish are out-competing native fishes for forage, becoming over-populated, and because of their propensity to jump, silver carp can be harmful to recreational boaters,” notes KFWR officials. “These species have the ability to produce over 1 million eggs per large adult each year, and where conditions are suitable for reproduction, their numbers cannot be controlled by agency efforts alone.”
For more information, visit fw.ky.gov.
