(Provided by Michigan DNR)

The Michigan DNR announced that approximately 2 miles of the St. Joseph River in Southwest Michigan will be closed Sept. 10-11 to accommodate an Early Detection and Prudent Response (EDPR) field exercise conducted by Fisheries Division staff. 

The DNR’s Fisheries Division is tasked with developing a plan for addressing any findings of Asian carp in Michigan waters. The EDPR field exercise will provide the division with the opportunity to test this plan by practicing fish collection methods in anticipation of what might occur if a silver carp or bighead carp discovery was made in a river leading into the Great Lakes. Presently, no live bighead carp or silver carp have been found in Michigan’s waters, either Great Lakes or inland; this measure is purely to ensure the state’s readiness.

The EDPR field exercise will be stationed at the DNR’s Jasper Dairy boating access site in Berrien County. This access point, along with a 2-mile section of the St. Joseph River, will be closed to all river users from 11 p.m. on Monday, Sept. 9, until 11 p.m. on Wednesday, Sept. 11. DNR conservation officers will be on hand throughout the EDPR field exercise to ensure anglers and boaters adhere to the closure.

Property owners along the affected portion of the St. Joseph River have been notified of this closure and the EDPR field exercise.

The two-day EDPR field exercise will engage more than 30 Fisheries Division employees and is funded in part by the Great Lakes Restoration Initiative www.greatlakesrestoration.us. The methods used as part of this exercise will involve netting and electrofishing and will focus on the species of grass carp, common carp and black buffalo.

The exercise will consist of placing upstream and downstream blocking nets in the river and using electroshocking boats to tag and release any common carp and black buffalo found on Tuesday. Survey crews will attempt to re-collect tagged fish again on Wednesday which will help compare catch efforts based on types of gear and levels of electroshocking, determine the effectiveness of blocking nets on a river, and understand the catchability of non-native fish species. All grass carp collected during the exercise will be removed from the river and samples will be taken to determine if they are capable of natural reproduction, their age and their sex.

The Chicago Area Waterway System (CAWS) is the most likely source of silver carp and/or bighead carp into the Great Lakes. The St. Joseph River was chosen as the location for this EDPR field exercise because it is the first major river system fish moving up the Michigan shoreline from the CAWS would encounter.