Carp pod traps have been developed and effectively trialled in New Zealand by Dr Adam Daniel. The traps rely on bait attracting carp through one way entrance doors into a mesh bag suspended from a tripod. The bag has a large air pocket in case air-breathing animals enter. The traps have the potential to provide a relatively low-cost option for targeted carp control with low risks for by-catch in small, discrete water bodies. The traps have also attracted interest from community groups, keen to do something about the proliferation of carp in local waterways.
The upper MacKenzie River, in the Wimmera, Western Victoria is a very high value waterway within the Wimmera Catchment Management Authority (CMA) region, retaining one of the region’s two very small but tenacious platypus populations as well as locally threatened River Blackfish, Mountain Galaxias and Southern Pygmy Perch populations. Due to the presence of in-stream barriers, the upper reaches of the MacKenzie River were virtually carp-free until record flooding in January 2011. During the floods, hundreds of carp were able to bypass drowned out regulators and enter the upper reaches. It is possible to restrict upstream carp migration apart from during floods and so the likelihood of carp regularly invading the upper reaches of the MacKenzie River is small. This provides a good opportunity to trial the effectiveness of carp removal work in the MacKenzie River, as opposed to locations where carp populations are firmly established
Wimmera CMA has previously trialled carp removal in the upper MacKenzie River via electrofishing. The data collected during both approaches enables compare catch rates from electrofishing and pod traps in order to evaluate the relative effort and cost of each method as well as risks around bycatch under fairly standard south-east Australian conditions. This will provide important information for natural resource management agencies that are considering carp removal options in similar high value waterways that contain small and restricted carp populations.