The Illinois Department of Natural Resources has found one 20-pound live Asian carp in Lake Calumet, which sits near the Illinois-Indiana border and is connected to Lake Michigan's canal system. Although researchers at the University of Notre Dame identified Asian carp DNA in the same harbor last January, this is the first physical specimen that's been found above an electric barrier system built by the U.S. Army Corps to prevent the invasion of the fish into the Great Lakes.

Jack Darin of the Illinois Sierra Club offered this response:

This underscores the urgency of measures to stop the carp from entering the Lake, and of beginning as soon as possible with an analysis and plan for separating the Lake Michigan and Mississippi/Illinois River watersheds. That's the only way to permanently stop the Asian Carp, and other alien invaders, from getting into our Great Lakes. The sooner we are able to break the artificial connection between these two waterways, the sooner we will be able to stop killing off fish in the Chicago River system.