Star Tribune
Coordinated hunt for silver carp in Minnesota and Wisconsin comes up empty
Dozens of sturgeon, northern pike, catfish and even gar were caught in the shallow backwaters of the Mississippi River by a formidable fishing operation this week. But the one fish that state and federal agencies could not pull up in their nets was the one they were after — the dreaded silver carp.
It’s a good sign in one sense — that the invasive carp, which upend ecosystems and injure boaters when they jump out of the water, still don’t have high enough numbers in Minnesota to be easily caught. But it’s disappointing, too, because biologists know the fish are here, and Minnesota is running out of time to come up with a way to stop them from spreading further.
“It’s a mixed bag,” said Grace Luppnow, invasive fish coordinator for the Minnesota Department of Natural Resources (DNR).
The DNR’s goal is to tag and track some silver carp to learn more about where and how deep they go, how they survive and what water temperatures they prefer. It’s a change in philosophy from the recent past, when the state sought to kill all silvers on sight.
The fish, native to Russia and Asia, have been slowly spreading north for decades, along with big head and grass carp, taking over much of the Mississippi River after being released by aquatic farmers in the South.
The lock and dam system in Iowa and Minnesota has slowed them, but the fish have continued to make it past the barriers whenever the water is high enough for them to swim through open gates.
Last year, Wisconsin and Minnesota started working with federal fisheries experts on a coordinated netting method to capture carp from the pools they frequent. About a dozen boats set nets at choke points, trapping all the fish in the area. They then herd them into smaller and smaller areas using electric pulses and noise makers. Eventually, the fish are corralled inside a single seine net and pulled up. All the native fish are safely released, while the invasive carp are either euthanized or tagged.
The agencies caught about 50 silver carp in 2021 using the method. Last week they pulled up none.
“We did see six silvers jump out of the water before we could catch them,” said Kayla Stampfle, invasive carp field lead for the DNR.
The carp only seem to spawn when there are high numbers of the fish around. It could have something to do with the amount of pheromones in the water, Stampfle said.
So while carp are caught in Minnesota every year, there isn’t any evidence they’re abundant enough to reproduce.
The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service out of La Crosse, Wis., has tagged and followed a small handful of invasive carp over the past two years. The fish each have their quirks, said Mark Fritts, conservation officer.
“We have some that are true homebodies, that stay right around where we tagged them,” he said.
Others immediately swam back south to Iowa and haven’t been seen in Minnesota since. One carp hung out for months right by the power plant where it was caught until it suddenly bolted north, swimming about 35 miles in one day. Nobody has determined what it was seeking.
Because carp school up together, the tagged fish have led to bigger captures. The hope is that the DNR will be able to tag enough of them to find out where they spend the winter, Stampfle said.
“We have a few spots in mind, but we just haven’t gotten enough tagged silvers to figure out their wintering spots,” she said.
Star Tribune
On the Wisconsin-Iowa border, the Mississippi River is eroding sacred Indigenous mounds
Bear and other members of her tribe are serving as consultants on the project, as is William Quackenbush, the tribal historic preservation officer for the Ho-Chunk Nation in Wisconsin, and his tribe. They also lead teams of volunteers to help care for the mounds, which includes removing invasive European plants and replacing them with native plants that reduce soil erosion.
Some are skeptical of this manmade solution to a manmade problem. There are some tribal partners who’ve expressed that the river should be allowed to keep flowing as it wants to, Oberreuter said. Snow also acknowledged that people have been hesitant about making such a change to the natural bank.
But, she pointed out, “The bank is (already) no longer what it was.”
When the berm is complete, Snow said, there’ll be a trail atop it that visitors can walk. That may help protect the mounds better than the current way to see them, which is to walk among them, she said.
The Sny Magill Unit has been part of Effigy Mounds National Monument since 1962, Snow said, but it’s not advertised like the rest of the park. That’s in part because there are no staff stationed there to properly guide people through the mounds. But if people visit respectfully, she believes it’s one of the best places to take in the mounds because it’s on a flat, walkable surface, unlike the rest of the park, which is on a blufftop.
Priore criticized his opponents’ stance on TCAAP. “On the one hand, you have two candidates, Kurt Weber and me, with a forward-thinking, fresh perspective and strategic vision,” he said, arguing others want to defer and delay the city’s long-term needs.
Priore listed his other priorities for the city as public safety, and comprehensive planning for more and better trails.
The most recent campaign finance reports do not cover the fall and show little raising or spending for any candidate. Priore’s report indicates he received $600 from Fabel’s campaign fund.
David Radziej was appointed to the Arden Hills City Council in 2022, and has been involved with the city for more than a decade through work on its Economic Development and Finance councils, as well as TCAAP planning groups. He lost a reelection bid in 2022.
In an interview, Radziej raised concerns that the new density limit for TCAAP is out of character for Arden Hills and said he fears adding housing units at the expense of commercial development will harm the city’s tax base.
“I’d like it to be developed. I’d like to hold harmless the current taxpayers,” he said in an interview.
Two months after getting a ticket for being on her phone while driving, a woman was on her phone again when struck a motorcyclist at an Anoka county intersection and killed him, according to a newly filed search warrant affidavit.
The crash occurred on Oct. 5 in Oak Grove at the intersection of Viking and Lake George boulevards NW., the Anoka County Sheriff’s Office said.
The Sheriff’s Office identified the motorcyclist who died at the scene as Kelly Matthew Linder, 49, of Albert Lea, Minn., and the SUV driver as Jessica Marie Pietrzak, 31, of St. Francis. Court records show that Pietrzak was ticketed in August by a St. Francis police officer for driving while on her phone.
According to state Department of Public Safety statistics, distracted driving was a factor in 132 traffic deaths in Minnesota from 2019 through 2023.
Linder was stopped shortly before noon on eastbound Viking Boulevard and waiting to turn left onto Lake George Boulevard when Pietrzak hit the motorcycle from behind, the Sheriff’s Office said.
A search warrant affidavit this week from the Anoka County Sheriff’s Office disclosed that a witness who stopped to help Pietrzak after the crash told law enforcement that Pietrzak said “she was not paying attention and had been on her phone.”
Then as more people stopped to help, Pietrzak “began telling people that the sun was in her eyes, and she did not see the motorcycle,” read the filing, which led to the court allowing investigators to collect data from her cellphone.
The filing pointed out that the sun at that time of the day was not in a position for it to affect her vision. Also, the filing continued, Pietrzak’s entire front windshield has a dark tint. She’s been ticketed twice for that dark windshield in recent years, according to court records.
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