MICRA member agencies participated in the development of the Management and Control Plan for Bighead, Black, Grass, and Silver Carps in the United States (National Plan) led by the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service (USFWS). Following approval of the National Plan for implementation by the national Aquatic Nuisance Species Task Force in 2007, MICRA has been working to coordinate implementation of the National Plan throughout the Mississippi River Basin. MICRA member agencies work collaboratively to identify and implement high priority management and control actions to reduce the spread and abundance of four species of invasive carp that are established and expanding their range within the Mississippi River Basin.
To address invasive carp species outside the Great Lakes, the United States Congress, in Section 1039 (b) of the Water Resources Reform and Development Act of 2014 (WRRDA 2014), charged the USFWS to work in coordination with the Secretary of the Army, the Director of the National Park Service (NPS), and the Director of the U.S. Geological Survey (USGS) to lead a multiagency effort to slow, and eventually eliminate, the spread of invasive carp in the Ohio River Basin and Upper Mississippi River Basin. Following passage of WRRDA 2014, the USFWS engaged with state and federal agency partners within the Ohio River and Upper Mississippi River sub-basins. The state agencies requested that the USFWS use the existing basinwide coordination structure of the MICRA partnership to coordinate multi-agency invasive carp efforts in the Mississippi River Basin.
The Water Resources Development Act of 2020 (WRDA 2020) expanded the geographic scope of WRRDA 2014 to the “Mississippi River and tributaries, including the six sub-basins of the river.” The MICRA member agencies actively worked to develop regional Invasive Carp Control Strategy Frameworks (Frameworks) to step-down implementation of the National Plan throughout the Mississippi River Basin. State and federal agencies collaborate through six invasive carp sub-basin partnerships to implement four Frameworks developed for the Lower Mississippi River Sub-Basin (including the Arkansas-Red-White Rivers Sub-basin), Missouri River Sub-Basin, Ohio River Sub-Basin (including the Tennessee and Cumberland Rivers Sub-basin), and the Upper Mississippi River Sub-Basin. The USFWS provides coordination support for each of MICRA’s six invasive carp sub-basin partnerships. The invasive carp sub-basin partnerships provide for collaborative implementation of the regional Frameworks throughout the Mississippi River Basin.
MICRA formed an Invasive Carp Advisory Committee (ICAC) to provide a mechanism for communication and coordination across the six invasive carp sub-basin partnerships to promote collaborative implementation of the sub-basin Frameworks throughout the Mississippi River Basin. The ICAC initiated the development of a national monitoring approach through the creation of the Sampling Approaches Workgroup and the Data and Analysis Workgroup to bring consistency among the member agencies for population assessments, data storage, and data analysis. A Control Actions Workgroup (CAW) was established to help harmonize removal efforts and other management actions across the basin. The workgroups develop management and monitoring approaches that can be implemented by MICRA member agencies to increase efficiency and consistency of invasive carp actions throughout the Mississippi River Basin.
Beginning in FY2015, Congress appropriated funding in the USFWS’s budget for invasive carp prevention and control in the Ohio River Basin and Upper Mississippi River Basin, providing the first substantial funding to address invasive carp populations in the Mississippi River Basin. Following the passage of WRDA 2020, Congress substantially increased the USFWS’s budget for invasive carp ($31 million total in Fiscal Year 2024), instructing the agency to use the additional funding to control invasive carp in all six sub-basins of the Mississippi River. In addition to funding the agency’s internal operations to provide leadership, coordination support, and implement field and laboratory activities in the Mississippi River and Great Lakes basins, a large portion of the USFWS’s annual invasive carp funding (>$18.6 million in Fiscal Year 2024) is provided as financial assistance to Mississippi River Basin states to support collaborative, multi-agency implementation of the sub-basin Frameworks.
Each year, with coordination support from the USFWS, the invasive carp sub-basin partnerships determine priority project needs and develop annual project proposals. A basinwide suite of project proposals is submitted annually by MICRA to the USFWS for funding consideration. Approved project proposals are subsequently developed into detailed annual work plans and compiled into an annual ‘Invasive Carp Monitoring and Response Plan for the Mississippi River Basin’. Agencies collaborating on the USFWS-funded partnership projects provide annual (calendar year) summary reports to track and evaluate progress, report results, and inform planning for management and control actions in future years. The National Plan, sub-basin Frameworks, annual Monitoring and Response Plans, and summary reports are available on the MICRA website at: https://micrarivers.org/invasive-carp-plans-and-reports/.
In addition to the multi-agency efforts coordinated through MICRA to manage and control invasive carp in the Mississippi River Basin, the Invasive Carp Regional Coordinating Committee (ICRCC), a partnership of state, provincial, and U.S. and Canadian federal agencies and other stakeholders, has coordinated the development and implementation of an annual Invasive Carp Action Plan to prevent the introduction and establishment of invasive carp populations in the Great Lakes since 2010. Many of these projects are implemented in the uppermost 175 miles (282.6km) of the Illinois River, which is part of the Mississippi River Basin, and the Chicago Area Waterway System (CAWS). Learn more about invasive carp management in the Great Lakes Basin.