Micra's Role in Cooperative Asian Carp Management and Control in the Mississippi River Basin

Interjurisdictional fishery resources in the Mississippi River Basin are cooperatively managed through a number of interstate partnerships, typically organized to address issues within a specific tributary system or sub-basin. These sub-basin partnerships work together through the Mississippi Interstate Cooperative Resource Association (MICRA), a partnership of the 28 state fish and wildlife management agencies with fisheries management jurisdiction in the Mississippi River Basin, to address basinwide interjurisdictional fishery resources issues. Bighead, silver, black, and grass carps are all established in the Mississippi River Basin and have been an increasing management concern to the basin states for more than two decades. In 2014, Congress directed the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service to lead a multiagency effort to slow the spread of Asian carp in the Upper Mississippi and Ohio River basins and tributaries. Rather than creating a new coordination structure for this purpose, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service requested MICRA to take a leadership role in coordinating the development and implementation of sub-basin action plans for Asian carp. MICRA worked closely with the individual basin states, sub-basin partnerships, and relevant federal agencies to lead the development of the 2015 Monitoring and Response Plan for Asian Carp in the Mississippi River Basin.