National Asian Carp Early Detection and Surveillance Plan

The Asian Carp Surveillance Plan for Areas Outside of the Great Lakes (Surveillance Plan) provides a comprehensive early detection and surveillance program for Asian carp through a national surveillance network that provides standard sampling, processing, data management and data analysis protocols.  The Great Lakes, the Chicago Area Waterway System, and other Great Lakes pathways are excluded from this Surveillance Plan because these areas receive funding and are managed through the Asian Carp Strategy Framework.  The goal of the Surveillance Plan is to track the leading edge of the Asian carp invasion so that management actions can be implemented by USFWS and its partners to reduce their spread.  The Surveillance Plan supports priorities identified in the Management and Control Plan for Bighead, Black, Grass and Silver Carps in the United States (Asian Carp Plan).

 The Surveillance Plan highlights the use of environmental DNA or eDNA because of its potential to be a more sensitive detection technique than traditional methods.  Nonetheless, the use of eDNA within aquatic systems remains novel and the Surveillance Plan proposes to utilize traditional sampling methods in conjunction with environmental DNA techniques.  The Surveillance Plan will be implemented in the Upper Mississippi River, Ohio River Basins, and other parts of the U.S. where the threat of expanding Asian carp populations are imminent, such as the Missouri River Basin.  Other high-risk ecosystems where invasive species pathways may allow Asian carp to transcend geographic boundaries may also be sampled. The plan will be implemented in coordination with the States, and other federal and local partners.  USFWS in cooperation with its partners would develop a more detailed Operational Plan for each basin which would fall under the umbrella of this plan.  A risk-based sampling design prioritized by species, pathways, and geographic risk assessments within the Surveillance Plan will help inform sampling locations.