The first time Chad Pregracke saw an Asian carp leap out of the Illinois River he laughed. Eager to share the joke, he took a boatload of people out on the river. As if on cue, carp flew out of the water–to everyone’s amusement. But then a fish hit one of the passengers square in the mouth and nearly knocked her out of the boat. Pregracke had to take the woman to the hospital, where she got seven stitches in her lip.
A year later he founded Living Lands and Waters and began organizing volunteers to help him haul tires, cans, bottles, refrigerators, and shopping carts out of the river. He says he never wasted any energy wondering how the trash got where it was. “Regardless of how it gets there, it needs to be picked up,” he says. “If you go out there and set the example, it catches on.”
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Over the years his efforts impressed plenty of sponsors, including 3M, Anheuser-Busch, Archer Daniels Midland, the National Fish and Wildlife Foundation, and the National Geographic Society. In 2004 Cargill, Koch Industries, the Argosy Foundation, and the Illinois Environmental Protection Agency each donated more than $50,000. Living Lands and Waters now has an annual budget of more than $650,000, and Pregracke and a paid crew of seven live on a tugboat and a barge that doubles as a floating garbage truck. They organize cleanups along the Illinois, Ohio, Missouri, Potomac, and Anacostia rivers, and they offer one-day educational workshops along the way. They count more than 25,000 volunteers and say thousands of teachers have attended their workshops, up to 800 at a single session.
“Environmental rock star,” says Tammy Becker, Living Lands’ education coordinator.
When Pregracke and his Living Lands crew steered their barge into the Illinois last summer they hadn’t been on the river for a year. As they traveled along it organizing cleanups, Pregracke was shocked by how many more Asian carp there were. He says that during one 15-minute stretch he must have seen a thousand jump out of the water.
Jeff Rach, a fishery biologist with the U.S. Geological Survey, says the effect of the Asian carp on other species can’t be evaluated until their numbers get bigger. “And then it’s too late,” he says. “The bottom line is you don’t want these critters brought into the system.” But it’s too late for that too, so he’s now evaluating two pesticides that could be used to control the carp: they would kill off all the species of fish in areas where they were used, but after the compounds broke down the areas would be restocked with desirable fish. “Personally, I feel once they’re in the system you’re never going to get rid of them,” he says. “You can only learn to live with them and control them. They aren’t ever going to get rid of the Asian carp–they’re so prolific.”
Asian carp are filter feeders, sucking in water and straining out whatever’s edible, so they can’t be caught on a hook. But they’re easily snagged in nets, which makes them a menace to commercial fishermen. “They tear your equipment up,” says Ready. “They’re so big and stout–aggressive fish. They dig right through a net.” Especially the bigheads.
