Prof has a plan to bottle up invasive carp

There may be a relatively cheap way to stop invasive carp from migrating up the Mississippi River, says a professor at the University of Minnesota.

Peter Sorenson says he knows how to stop most of the carp from getting as far as the Twin Cities, but he needs money to put the plan into motion. According to a report in the St. Paul Pioneer Press:

The problem: He doesn't have the money.

And he needs it now to make his plan work.

Any donors?

"We'll take money from wherever we can get it," said Sorensen, who heads the Minnesota Aquatic Invasive Species Research Center at the U's St. Paul campus. "We need to put these things in the water as soon as possible."

Those "things" are five transducers — underwater speakers — that Sorensen and his team want to install at Lock and Dam No. 8 on the Mississippi River near Genoa, Wis.

Sorensen says the key to his plan is the finding that carp are sensitive to sound — up to 100 times more sensitive than other fish species. He believes that, when the carp make their dramatic jumps into the path of speedboats, they are trying to escape the noise from the boats' motors. His speakers, he says, could create a barrier that would bother the fish and keep them from advancing.

Sorensen joins The Daily Circuit to discuss his plan and the prospects for making it work.