Federal and state officials are mounting a desperate, last-ditch effort to prevent the marauding carp from breaching an electrical barrier and slipping into the Great Lakes from the Mississippi River. Michigan is drawing up a lawsuit demanding the closing of shipping locks on a waterway that links the lakes with the Mississippi. And last week, Illinois officials poisoned a six-mile stretch of a canal to wipe out any of the carp.
ABC http://abcnews.go.com/Business/wireStory?id=9303633
Chicago Tribune http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/chi-ap-us-asiancarpfears,0,4153069.story
Miami Herald http://www.miamiherald.com/news/nation/AP/story/1375787.html, and many others.

Never before have Illinois agencies tried to kill so many fish at one time. By the time the poison dissipates in a few days, state officials estimate that 200,000 pounds of fish will be bound for landfills. But they say the stakes -- the Great Lakes ecosystem and its healthy fish population -- could hardly be higher. Asian carp have slowly been making their way up the Mississippi River and its tributaries, shifting the ecological balance as they devour enormous quantities of plankton that once sustained other species.

U.S. Geological Survey biologist Duane Chapman told reporter Tina Lam, who covered the poisoning for the Free Press, he didn’t expect many or even any Asian carp would be found floating after the poisoning. Because in the tests he did to determine how much of the toxin Rotenone would be required to kill the carp, they dropped to the bottom after they died, and the teams on the canal were looking for floaters.

A biologist who tested the poison on carp said Thursday that the fact that more carp weren't showing up dead in the canal wasn't surprising, since his tests showed they would sink to the bottom. "There is a chance someone will find one or two," wrote Duane Chapman, a biologist at the U.S. Geological Survey in Missouri.

Video from "Happening Now"
Asian carp toxicity study results discussed. See publication at: http://www.cerc.usgs.gov/content/uploadedfiles/externaldocs/carp_rotenone.pdf

Federal biologist Duane Chapman has done research on the effect the fish poison has on silver and bighead carp, and he says the poison does not cause those fish to immediately float. Chapman predicted before the lone carp was found late Thursday that biologists might find a specimen or two in the wake of the poisoning, but he said nobody should be expecting a flotsam of Asian carp carcasses.

Biologist says Asian fish need right conditions to breed in lake...
Biologist Duane Chapman knows as much about Asian carp as anyone in the United States, and he says that even though some of the giant fish apparently have breached an electric barrier protecting the Great Lakes, all is not lost. "If a few fish get into the Great Lakes, it's not game over," said Chapman, a U.S. Geological Survey researcher who has made a career out of studying the fish on the heavily infested Missouri River.

Invasive Asian carp pose a dire threat to the Great Lakes' ecosystem but may not be able to breed in open lake waters, a U.S. expert on the fish said.
"If a few fish get into the Great Lakes, it's not game over," said Duane Chapman, a U.S. Geological Survey researcher who studies the food-hogging fish on the heavily infested Missouri River.

USGS scientist Duane Chapman provided reporters and filming crew from National Geographic an educational Missouri River tour for the upcoming winter television special, "Monster Fish," which profiles invasive Asian carp. Chapman explained the carps' invasive history, the abundance of larvae compared to native fish, and why their anatomy makes carp such a fierce competitor. National Geographic will return in Sept. for more details on Asian carp research underway at the USGS Columbia Environmental Research Center.

USGS scientist Duane Chapman of the Columbia Environmental Research Center, appeared on June 7, 2009, in the Columbia Missourian about Asian carp facing starvation and reproductive problems in the Missouri River. Chapman discussed their health decline, which is hypothesized to result from a low supply of zooplankton in the river.

"I don't think there are very many serious scientists who think it could have been native to Montana," said Duane Chapman, president of the Introduced Fish Section in the American Fisheries Society, a leading organization of fisheries professionals. Walleye "have been moved around an awful lot through illegal stocking," Chapman said from Columbia, Mo. The fish is found widely in the United States.

Duane Chapman