Spring Seasonal Intensive Monitoring Event Completed

No Bighead or Silver Carp found in the Chicago Area Waterway System

June 24, 2021

Contracted fisher aboard a boat setting gill net during the intensive monitoring event within the Chicago Area Waterway system. Photo courtesy of Justin Widloe/Illinois Department of Natural Resources.

Partner agencies under the leadership of the Illinois Department of Natural Resources (IDNR), with support from the Asian Carp Regional Coordinating Committee Monitoring and Response Working Group, found no Bighead Carp or Silver Carp during the annual Spring Seasonal Intensive Monitoring (SIM) event conducted throughout the Chicago Area Waterway System (CAWS) in May 2021.

Each spring and fall, an intense collaborative surveillance effort focused on detecting live Bighead Carp and Silver Carp takes place throughout the CAWS. The Spring 2021 SIM event was conducted May 17-28.

The IDNR, Illinois Natural History Survey, U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, and U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, with the aid of contracted commercial fishers, monitored 603 sites throughout the CAWS.

Nearly 70 hours of electrofishing was completed, 36 miles of gill net set, and almost two miles of seine were pulled. Approximately 18,000 individual fish representing 49 species and five hybrid groups were captured during the event. Gizzard Shad and Largemouth Bass were some of the most common native fish captured, along with non-native Common Carp, with results similar to previous years. Muskellunge were detected in the CAWS for the first time while monitoring.

For more information on the Asian Carp Regional Coordinating Committee’s comprehensive Asian carp management strategy for protecting the Great Lakes from Asian carp, please view the 2021 Asian Carp Action Plan.