Exploiting Dietary Differences to Develop Species-Specific Control of Common Carp

Using Toxic Food Pellets

Josh Poole

Blake Sauey, Jon Amberg, Przemek Bajer

Current Control • Winter Seining, Barriers, Water Draw-downs,

Rotenone

• There is a need for more practical and broadly applicable strategies

Carp-specific Toxins

• Carp can be trained to aggregate at locations baited with corn

• Carp eat foods many native species won’t

• Bait and switch might be possible

Carp can be Trained • Tracked carp using radio telemetry • Baited a site in the lake with corn • Used underwater cameras to examine specificity

Bajer et al. 2010

Antimycin-A

• Restricted use pesticide

• “Very highly toxic” to fishes

• Short half-life, non-toxic metabolites

• Carp can’t detect it!

sigma

Experiments

• Bait Formulation

• Four Experiments 1. Verify toxicity

2. Examine leaching

3. Test species specificity in tanks

4. Test species specificity in ponds

0%

10%

20%

30%

40%

50%

60%

70%

80%

90%

100%

0 mg/kg (control) 4 mg/kg 8 mg/kg 16 mg/kg

Pe

rce

nt

Mo

rtal

ity

Amount of toxic bait fed

Results: Gavage (LD50):

Methods: Leaching

• 1 g of toxic bait inaccessible to fish

• Carp & Bluegill

• 72 h

• Static system

0

0.05

0.1

0.15

0.2

0.25

0.3

0.35

0.4

1 hr 4 hr 8 hr 24 hr 48 hr 72 hr

An

tim

ycin

in t

he

wat

er

(ug

/L)

Results: Leaching

Common carp LC50: 0.35 ug/L

Bluegill sunfish LC50: 0.14 ug/L

Methods: Specificity test in lab

• 227 L tanks

• Stocked – Carp

– Bluegill

– Perch

– Fatheads

• Trained for 1 week

• Fed with pellets

• Mortality 24 h

Michigan.gov

Results: Specificity in lab

0%

10%

20%

30%

40%

50%

60%

70%

80%

90%

100%

Carp Bluegill Yellow Perch

FatheadMinnow

Ave

rage

Pe

rce

nt

Mo

rtal

ity

Toxic Bait

Control

*

*

Specificity in ponds

• Six 0.01 acre ponds

• Stocked with – Carp

– Bluegill

– Perch

• Acclimated for 1 week

• Fed with toxic pellets – 3 treatment ponds

– 3 controls

0

5

10

15

0

5

10

0

10

20

0

10

20

Pond 1 Pond 2 Pond 3 Pond 4 Pond 5 Pond 6

Control Treatment

Adult Common Carp

Juvenile Common Carp

Bluegill Sunfish

Yellow Perch

Nu

mb

er

of

Fish

Results: Pond Trials alive

dead

Conclusions

• Carp readily consumed corn pellets containing lethal amounts of Antimycin A

• Bluegills and perch not affected

• Fathead minnows affected – Need to improve species-specificity to exclude native

cyprinids

– Suckers?

• Next steps (2017, 2018) – Larger, more natural ponds

– A lake (pellets without antimycin A)

How this could be applied

1. Train carp using blank bait

2. Examine specificity using cameras

3. Switch bait with one containing a toxin

4. Remove bait after carp have fed

5. Monitor area, remove dead fish if necessary

Thank You