(KIWA Staff Photo)The Iowa Department of Natural Resources is considering a new method for identifying fish species in lakes and streams.
The agency currently relies on electrofishing in the spring and fish nets in the summer and fall to catch fish, assess their health, and release them. DNR Fisheries Biologist Andrew Carlson, who covers northwest Iowa, says water samples may soon provide similar data.
Research published in 2022 found scientists were able to use environmental DNA (eDNA) in the Pacific Ocean to measure fish populations off the West Coast — information that helped fishing fleets estimate potential catch numbers. Carlson recently returned from a national conference where the process was discussed.
States like Alaska and Washington collect eDNA to track salmon. Pennsylvania and Wisconsin have partnered with the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service to track invasive species using eDNA. There is also a national, crowd-sourced database of aquatic species — contributed to by federal and state agencies as well as outside organizations — maintained by a national center for wildlife and fish conservation.
