What would cause thousands of Asian carp to die all at once

Went into a back water area off the Missouri River today. We fish it a lot when the water is high enough that we can get in. Well today the banks were littered with thousands of dead Asian carp. Only Asian carp no other fish dead. It had happened last weekend when the water was 10ft. higher because some of them were way up the bank. Some still floating. I don't think there is anything you can put in the water to just kill them. Nothing else was dead. There is a BIG variety of fish in there. Not complaining about the dead carp just curious as to what had happened. We thought maybe water temp. but that didn't seem right either. It is one of those HMMMMMM things. Wish it would happen to the rest of those carp.

There is a virus that affects only carp species. It's called Spring Viremia Carp Disease. There was a large die-off of asian carp in the lower Kansas River two weeks ago too. Not sure where you saw the dead ones. It's possible these were from that kill if you were downstream of Kansas City a little ways. To this old biologist a dead asian carp is cause for celebration if native fish aren't affected.

That made me think Hmmmmmmm also. Might be some clue there as how to get rid of them. Hope so anyway. I am glad you reported it.

Thanks

"What would cause thousands of Asian carp to die all at once "



Prayer.....

I passsed around the report on dead asian carp and got a response back from our Columbia Office. "Duane Chapman just stopped by my office. I showed him your email and he said he bets the Asian carp are starving to death. They are in terrible condition and the high water is the straw that breaks the camel’s back. They just can’t take the high water in their condition and they die." The asian carp are having a difficult time filtering enough food from the muddy Missouri it appears. Duane Chapman works for the USGS and is THE authority on Asian carp in the Midwest.

Would that cause probably a thousand of them to die at 1 time? They should have all died in 2011 as long as the Missouri was up that year.

Most of the adults did die in 2011. If you'll notice the size of the Asian carp has drastically been reduced. Duane thinks they either kept up spawning activities in 2011 until they died or starved to death then. He's documented the massive reduction in adult fish. Unfortuantely they successfully reproduced and those fish are repopulated the system.

they populate way to well. have a hard time finding schools of shad anymore. You may find a school but they turn out to be carp.

The carp are good bait but cannot be used alive. This is to prevent someone from catching them in the rivers and transferring them to our big lakes.

We save some of the ones that jump in the boat and stick them in the freezer to use later as cut bait.

that works.

I don't know but we need more of it whatever it is.

Some great replies to this question. Thanks for the info and once again we are glad to have you and the other biologist on here to help us out with our crazy questions.

My pleasure. I do get crazy questions from time to time, just not on here! Always good questions here!

There is recent information about the large asian carp kills and the causes in a newsletter from the USFWS service out of Columbia. It isn't posted online yet, but here is the link once it is: Columbia Fish and Wildlife Conservation Office | U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service Midwest Region

Results from testing dead Asian carp from a large fish kill in the Osage River concluded the origin of the fish kill was unknown. The report goes on to talk about a large die off of Asian carp in the Mississippi River resulting from bacteria within the fishes brain.
sequence analysis of the bacterium identified the bacteria as L. lactis, a bacterium used extensively in the production of cheese and buttermilk. Dr. Khoo tested the bacteria using Koch’s postulates and found it to be lethal to Asian carp. Hopefully the report will be posted soon, but very intersting stuff in the war against Asian carp.

thanks. Can't wait to read the article.

"LEthal to Asian Carp"

I like the sound of that.

Plus, what's not to like about CHEESE??!

I hope they figure out a safe fast way to combat these rascals, soon. was throwing my cast net for shad yesterday and the schools of baby silvers, less than an inch long, were so bad the floor of my boat was covered with them. not a baby shad found in the mix anywhere.

That is not good when you can't find shad. Saw lots of babies in Beouff Creek and was wondering if they were shad or carp. Probably carp.

lack of O2 could cause a massive die off

Yes Rocket but all fish would probably die not just the Carp! Just saying my blonde thoughts again! Lol

There have been several massive die-offs of silver carp over the past several years. Lack of dissolved oxygen would cause a multi species fish kill so this wasn't the case. Here is the answer I got from our Fisheries Pathologist. So far the cause of the die-offs has been inconclussive, though there is some belief it may be a virus in the brain. Many agency are working to find a "silver bullet" that would only impact invasive carp, but as you can imagine this can be a very large can of worms. I hope this info helps. Mike "There have been die offs in thelast couple of years along the Missouri from Nebraska on down and in theMississippi along the MS state line. MS State got a sample that wasn’t internalsoup yet and got Lactococcus off the brain but not the internal organs. Whilethis can kill fish since there was only one sample it’s inconclusive.

There was a HUGE die off in theCumberland this spring and spotty die off in a couple of other spots in KY,which is probably where this thread comes from. Fresh samples were sent to bothKY State and Purdue and no virus or bacteria was found. I don’t know if theydid just cell culture or that and molecular. If only cell culture was done,it’s possible for a virus to be present and undetected. Many viruses are veryspecific to the cell line and some don’t even have cell lines that work sodetection is just molecular. It’s always tricky with a complete unknown.

On the thread the only response was lack of O2 which would be incorrectin this case particularly for the large number of a single species of fishfound dead over a very long stretch of the river. Some of the dead carp in theCumberland had gas bubble disease (probably those closer to the dam) butincrease O2 saturation doesn’t kill 500K fish for the same reasons as lack ofO2.

Thanks Mike. Next time your in the store "Everharts" I have a couple questions for you about fish growth that I have been getting asked lately.

Thanks. I always knew those fish weren't right I the head. LOL. Those things are such a nuisance.