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Asian Carp Pose Environmental, Safety, and Financial Threats to the Mississippi River Basin and Great Lakes

You Can Help Stop Them.

Help Us Defend Our Rivers and Lakes

FDA additive (safe), PROVEN, digestive (selective),  and low material cost method to control the Asian carp.

Your Sponsorship Will Help Ensure Conservation Officers Have a Proven, Safe, Selective, and Low-Cost Method for Controlling the Asian Carp Population.

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Environmental Threats

Murky Waters

The Bighead, Silver, and Common carps invaded Lake Yankton in a 2011 flood. By 2014, they comprised over 70+% of the fish bio-mass.

Water visibility decreased from 7+ feet to under a foot and all the game fish were gone.

The Asian carp problem became so prolific that officials decided to kill ALL the fish with the highly toxic Rotenone.

It costs millions of dollars to restore Lake Yankton. The lake is now a sport fishing destination.

Pushing Out Native Fish

Bighead and Silver carp can grow over 6 inches in the first year, ceasing to be prey for most native game fish. As the Asian carp fish bio-mass increases, the population of native filter feeding fish like gizzard shad and paddlefish decreases. The native game fish (like bass) are threatened, too, as their food source disappears.

Changing the Composition of Plankton- The Building Block of Life

Plankton are floating organisms including (but not limited to) algae, bacteria, immature animals and protozoa. Plankton is the basis of aquatic animal life.

Asian carp quickly out-compete native filter feeding fish for this food source. Because the Bighead and Silver carp can eat smaller particles than paddlefish, the plankton never becomes large enough for the paddlefish to eat.

These carps’ digestion is inefficient, and they are always excreting. The excrement will change clear water green. The bighead and silver carp will concentrate toxic blue-green algae.

Strong Migration Instinct

Asian carp escaped from fisheries in the 1970’s, probably during a flood.. The Fish now inhabit 6,400 river-miles throughout the Mississippi Basin

Their territory grows every year. The Bighead and Silver carp move freely throughout the Mississippi Basin, crossing locks and traveling hundreds of miles a season.

2019 is a Mississippi Basin flood year. The Bighead and Silver carp population explode in flood years. In 2020 millions of new bighead and silver carp will migrate for food.

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Threatening A Way of Life for
Boaters & Fishers

Concussions, Broken Bones, and Bruising

Getting hit with a 20 lb. flying Asian carp is no joke.  There are reports of concussions, broken bones, cuts, and bruising.

Ruining Fishing

Best case: Native game fish are endangered and their population drops significantly. In the worst cases, like Lake Yankton, they completely disappear.
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What’s Being Done Now
The Federal government spends about $50 Million per Year on the Following Programs:

1. Barriers

The electric fences in the Chicago Area Waterway System (CAWS) cost over $245 million and are very effective. The Army Corps of Engineers (ACE) built lower cost land barriers in Ft. Wayne, IN, Cook County, IL area, closed the St. Anthony lock in Minneapolis and is building a land barrier in Ohio. ACE proposed an additional CAWS Brandon lock barrier with a current forecast cost of $831 million.

2. Enforcement, Education & Early Detection

The public’s help is needed to control the Bighead and Silver carp. If you catch an Asian carp, please kill the fish or at least throw it on the bank. You should destroy unused live fish bait as well. In an effort to combat the invasion, conservation officers monitor un-infested rivers and lakes for the presence of Asian carp using eDNA tests and harvesting.

It’s illegal to own live Asian carp in most states.

3. Population Control

Harvesting is expensive, dangerous and ineffective. The exception is contract harvesting of small, non-reproducing isolated lakes, dam pools or ponds which can remove almost all carp. Commercial harvesting is an economic activity that removes large carp, allowing the small fish to grow large and perpetuate the species.
A lower-cost method is needed to reduce all life stages in
all 6,400 river miles if we are to control the Asian carp population.
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A Proposed Solution

Pesticides need to be an integral part of reducing and controlling the population of Asian Carp. A pesticide is critical in controlling the sea lamprey, a Great Lakes invasive species. Without annual sea lamprey pesticide program, there would be very few fish in the Great Lakes. 

What Is a Pesticide?

The Definition:

A pesticide is defined as “any substance or mixture of substances intended for preventing, destroying, repelling, or mitigating any pest.” (source EPA web site). A pest is any living plant or animal from a single cell to a blue whale that someone wants to control.

Pesticides are regulated by the EPA.

Are All Pesticides Dangerous?

Not all pesticides are dangerous. Table salt is an EPA registered pesticide, and so is capsaicin- an active component in chili peppers.

The Ideal Pesticide

An ideal pesticide is safe to handle, affects only the target species, and then degrades in the environment to safe chemicals already present.

Meet MJSTI

MJSTI is a Kansas City area startup that has spent 3 years developing a proven safe, selective, and low-cost pesticide for Asian Carp.

The MJSTI Solution

1. Safe

The ingredients are FDA approved materials. Since the outside of the pesticide particle is vegetable fat, it is safe to handle. The United States Geological Survey (USGS) in a test demonstrated that the floating beads can be contained in a ring and fish will eat the beads. If the Asian carp do not eat the beads or bio-bullets, the appliers can remove the beads from the containment area.

2. Selective

The formulation is selective since it is a digestive poison. Only the fish that eat like the Asian Carp should be affected. In contrast, an inhalation toxin like rotenone kills all the gill breathing animals.
Conservation officers should be able to increase the selectivity by choice of bait and habitat.

3. Low Cost

The MJSTI’s estimated raw material cost is 1/12 to 1/30 the raw material cost of USGS Antimycin A/ beeswax bead. The MJSTI raw materials are readily available and EPA registered pesticide ingredients with one exception: lysine, which is an amino acid essential for life. All the materials have well-accepted and public toxicity studies. The safe, accepted and public toxicities should allow for a fast and low-cost EPA formula registration.

How the MJSTI Pesticide Works

The formulation consists of two beads, a coated water insoluble copper salt (right) and coated agent (two commercial products left and center) that makes the copper salt water soluble in the fish’s intestines.

The fish eats both beads, in the intestines, enzymes release the copper and the solubilizing agent forming soluble copper (left soluble copper salt, center insoluble copper salt, right insoluble copper salt and solubilizing agent: blue water indicates soluble copper, the darker blue, the more copper). The carp then absorbs the soluble copper and sends the copper to the liver for de-detoxification. The large amount of copper overwhelms the liver causing the liver to fail and the fish to perish. (see picture of fish with green abdomen).

Only fish that eat like the bighead and silver carp should be affected (i.e. gizzard shad and largemouth buffalo). If nothing is done about the Asian carp, native filter feeding fish are endangered. Copper is a micro-nutrient needed for life. Copper is 10X more toxic to fish than mammals.

Next Step:

An anonymous nonprofit organization is assisting Maurice Sadowsky to commercialize the digestive, FDA additive carp pesticide. The market is too small for private investors. Activities include pilot plant production, bighead and silver carp toxicity, non-target species toxicity testing and EPA registration. Financing is still needed as the total costs could exceed $500,000. MJSTI will continue to offer the technology to the Federal government; Maurice Sadowsky would receive a royalty. Maurice Sadowsky invested over $50,000-and-three-man years of work and cannot continue to self-fund the project development. Please consider a donation: $5 is good, $25 is wonderful.

We Need Your Help!

We have developed a solution that can help fight back against the Asian Carp invasion. We need funds to commercialize it. You can make a difference. You can help protect our river systems. Please consider making a contribution!
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Be Part of the Solution.

There are over 20 million people (fishers, boaters, paddlers) directly affected by the Asian Carp invasion. MJSTI has spent over $50,000 and 3 man years to prove the formulation of its pesticide.

PROVEN, FDA additive, digestive and low material cost method to control the Asian carp. MJSTI is working with the Federal government to commercialize the formulation and has and will continue to offer the technology to the Federal government.

Google Group: Maurice Sadowsky plans at least eight blogs on the Asian carp and invasive species management. By signing up for google groups, I can notify you of new blog post.

 

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MJSTI Corp., is a for-profit company. Maurice Sadowsky is the President of the Company and the inventor of the safe, selective and low-cost Asian carp pesticide.

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