Assessing Movement of Adult Silver Carp and Bighead Carp in the Upper Illinois Waterway System Using GPS Satellite and Radio Telemetry

Invasive silver carp and bighead carp have established populations throughout the Illinois River. Efforts to prevent invasion into the Great Lakes rely on a comprehensive monitoring program.  Despite a wealth of information on Asian carp movement, a finer-scale approach to understand real-time movements and habitat use would strengthen management efforts. We are testing GPS tags to determine patterns of movement, identify potential feeding and spawning areas, and inform commercial removal efforts in the Upper Illinois River.  To optimize and determine the feasibility of this technology, data logging tags (manually tracked with radio telemetry) were tethered to bighead and silver carp species in raceway and field experiments. Seven of fifteen field-deployed tags have been recovered and have returned 1,194 individual waypoints.  We have demonstrated the use of this technology to monitor Asian carp and will begin testing remotely-accessed, real-time satellite-linked prototypes in 2016.  Fine-scale accuracies and fast acquisition speeds make this an ideal tool, and is the first use of GPS technology to track fish in riverine systems.