The Duality of Asian Carp Monitoring: Protecting the Great Lakes While Providing Insight into Fish Species Distribution and Abundance in the Chicago Area Waterway System

The Chicago Area Waterway System (CAWS) was once a highly degraded and largely ignored urban waterway. In the past 40 years, infrastructure changes have reduced combined sewer overflows, thus increasing recreation and attention on the CAWS and stimulating revision of water quality standards. The CAWS is also a pathway for invasive species between Lake Michigan and the Mississippi River basin. Asian carp have been a primary focus in recent years with development of an electric dispersal barrier and an intensive monitoring and control program to prevent entry into Lake Michigan. A major ancillary benefit of the Asian carp monitoring program is to provide additional information on native fish distribution and abundance in the CAWS. Since 2010, 1000 hours of electrofishing have been completed in the CAWS, resulting in the identification of 72 fish species and more than 300,000 individuals. Multidimensional scaling revealed differences in the fish community composition amongst CAWS waterways. Similarly, significant differences in CPUE and species richness were identified using ANOVA. This data will be useful in tracking changes resulting from continued improvements in the CAWS as well as provide extensive information for managers and decision makers, highlighting the added benefit of Asian carp monitoring and control efforts.