A test used to confirm the presence of Asian carp threatening the Great Lakes now has the support of a peer-reviewed scientific journal. Dan Egan of the Milwaukee Journal reports that the journal Conservation Letters has published research by the scientists who have isolated DNA from water samples in the Chicago canal system that they save prove the prescence of the invasive species. Their article asserts the test is not only valid, but adds that the risk of an Asian carp invasion of Lake Michigan is imminent.
"Critics have questioned whether our research can be trusted, but now that our work has been thoroughly reviewed and published in a scientific journal, hopefully the debate can shift from questioning the science to focusing on policy and management solutions instead," Lindsay Chadderton, a scientist with the Nature Conservancy who co-authored the paper with a trio of University of Notre Dame scientists, told Egan.
Lisa Frede, director of regulatory affairs for the Chemical Industry Council of Illinois and a scientific adviser with UnLock Our Jobs, an industry group opposed to plugging the canal system in the name of halting the carp, was not convinced. "Scientific peer review does not necessarily translate into successful practical application in the field," she said. Only one Asian carp has been found past the barrier protecting Lake Michigan from the fish. Frede claimed that it "was likely the result of human introduction."
The research paper says, "It is possible, but not likely, that Asian carp DNA could enter the upper Illinois River waterway by sources other than living fish, such as sewage and wastewater, bilge water discharge, excrement from predatory fish or waterfowl, or from dead fish carried on barges and boats from downstream. ... None of these alternate sources explains the overall spatial patterns or repeated detections from independent sampling trips spread across a 12-month period." (Read more)
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