Carp Tagged By Fisheries Students

Nick Lapointe and Mike Duncan

performing the radio tag surgery on the carp.

A group of Virginia Tech students have played a crucial role in a study funded by the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers. Some 7,680 sterile grass carp were brought from Arkansas to Lake Gaston, which lies along the Virginia-North Carolina border. Half of the fish were deposited in the lake near Bracey, Va., and the other half were inserted at the N.C. Wildlife Resources Commission access.

The carp are a part of the 2007 weed treatment plan for the lake and were ordered by the Lake Gaston Weed Control Council. A team of Virginia Tech fisheries students measured and weighed a sample of the carp to ensure that they were healthy.

The students also surgically implanted 30 carp with radio tags. The tags will allow the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers to study to determine movement patterns of the fish and their mortality rate.

Nick Lapointe and Mike Duncan, both fisheries and wildlife majors, performed the surgery by inserting the tags through incisions in the fish’s stomachs and then stitching the incisions together. Duncan will return to Lake Gaston about once per month to track the fish and record their positions using GPS.

The Virginia Tech team also consisted of Mark Foster, a senior fisheries science major; Ryan Saylor, a fisheries and wildlife science major set to begin graduate school in the fall; Michelle Davis, a research associate and fisheries and wildlife science graduate; and Ben Eberline, a sophomore fisheries science major.

4/12/09