Invasive Asian Carp advancing through Indiana

Those voracious invasive fish, Asian Carp, have another possible point of entry to Ohio and Lake Erie.

A spawning population of the silver carp has been found in the Wabash River in Indiana near Fort Wayne. That puts them very close to the Ohio border and to a stream, called the Little Tributary. If the Little Tributary has a major flood, the fish could conceivably swim about a mile east and get into the Maumee River system.

The chance of this happening seems much more remote than the threat of Asian Carp getting into Lake Erie via Lake Michigan. In Illinois, the fish have moved beyond an electric barrier set up in the Chicago Sanitary and Ship Canal and have been found in Lake Calumet, which is about six miles away from Lake Michigan.

Environmental groups are nevertheless saying the Wabash River discovery creates a new threat to Lake Erie's fishing and tourism industry and that safeguards must be put in place to keep the carp out of Ohio.

(c) 2010, The Columbus Dispatch, Ohio
Distributed by McClatchy-Tribune Information Services.