Asian carp may sneak into Minn.

• Carp

Associated press In this August 2011 photo provided by the Iowa Department of Natural Resources, a pair of bighead carp, believed to be just over a year old, are seen after being caught on East Lake Okoboji near Okoboji, Iowa.

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MINNEAPOLIS (AP) — There’s a back door for Asian carp to sneak into Minnesota, and fisheries officials are worried that the invaders might have found it already.

Commercial fishermen recently caught dozens of Asian carp in northwestern Iowa’s Great Lakes, one of that state’s most popular vacation spots. Those waters connect with lakes and streams in southwestern Minnesota, so the haul came as an unwelcome surprise to Minnesota officials who’ve been more focused on the higher-profile fight against Asian carp infiltrating up the Mississippi River.

“We view it as a big threat. ... These fish don’t recognize political boundaries,” said Ryan Doorenbos, area fisheries supervisor for the Minnesota Department of Natural Resources in Windom.

No bighead or silver Asian carp have been caught in southwestern Minnesota, but a few have been netted on the east side of the state in the Mississippi and St. Croix Rivers. Officials have been trying for a few years to develop a strategy to stop them from advancing up the Mississippi past Minneapolis, but they’ve just started studying their options for the southwest.

Iowa DNR officials knew they had a problem when they netted two bighead carp in East Okoboji Lake last August. That was confirmed in late March when commercial fishermen caught 82 bighead carp and 55 silver carp in the same general area. A few days later in Spirit Lake, just below the Minnesota border, they caught one more silver carp, the kind known for leaping high into the air when startled by passing boats.

Officials believe the invasive carp made a dash into the Iowa Great Lakes during record flooding caused by heavy rain last summer. They’ve been present in the Missouri River system for some time. When the swift swimmers finally got an opportunity to sneak past a dam blocking their advance up the Little Sioux River, they were able to reach and swim up a creek that serves as the outlet for the chain of lakes.

The Iowa DNR plans to install an electric barrier to try to prevent reinforcements from reaching the lakes.

Biologists don’t know if the fish will be able to establish a permanent breeding presence in them.

Research indicates Asian carp need the currents of major rivers to spawn successfully, but neither state wants to take a chance on the fish adapting.

Minnesota started taking defensive measures a few weeks ago. Effective April 30, Minnesota designated several lakes, rivers, creeks and drainage ditches in Jackson and Nobles counties as infested waters because of the risk that a vanguard of Asian carp might already be lurking there.

Luke Skinner, the Minnesota DNR’s invasive species program supervisor, said the main benefit of that pre-emptive strike is that it prohibits the harvest of minnows from those waters that could be used as bait elsewhere.

It’s hard for most people to tell baby Asian carp from native minnow species, so the DNR fears that an angler who illegally dumps leftover minnows harvested from infested waters into another lake could give them a new foothold, possibly even in a major recreational lake well beyond the affected corner of southwestern Minnesota that’s in the Missouri River watershed.

Doorenbos said he’s studying three potential infiltration routes from Iowa. One would be directly from the Iowa Great Lakes via Little Spirit Lake, which straddles the border and connects with several lakes on the Minnesota side. A second would be the Little Sioux River, which starts in Minnesota and flows down the west side of the Iowa Great Lakes before it eventually reaches the Missouri River. The third would be in the far southwest corner of the state near Luverne in the Rock River watershed.

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