Terms of Reference

Binational Risk Assessment for Asian Carps in the Great Lakes

Central and Arctic Region, National Advisory Meeting

November 8-10, 2011
Cleveland, Ohio

Chairperson: Denis Rivard

Context

Asian carps are currently threatening the Great Lakes with invasion of reproducing populations.  Canadian and American agencies share a similar goal to prevent the introduction of reproducing populations of Asian carps into the Great Lakes.  Much research has been undertaken by the United States under the Asian Carp Control Strategy Framework. The available results of this research, combined with complementary Canadian research, will be used to assess the risk of Asian carps to the Great Lakes.  The results will provide useful management and decision-making advice for both sides of the border focussing on all aspects of the probability of introduction (likelihood of arrival, survival, establishment, and spread), and the magnitude of the consequences should Asian carps arrive in the Great Lakes.  Freshwater fish invasive species risk assessment experts from Fisheries and Oceans Canada’s Centre of Expertise for Aquatic Risk Assessment (CEARA), Great Lakes Fishery Commission, the US Geological Survey, and the US Fish and Wildlife Service will use available research results to draft an ecological risk assessment following guidelines provided by CEARA.  These results will be peer reviewed by experts from both Canada and the United States in order to provide advice on questions asked by managers and decision-makers at previously held meetings (November 2010, May 2011, June 2011).  The results of the ecological risk assessment will subsequently be used to conduct a separate socio-economic impact analysis.  The results of both the ecological risk assessment and the socio-economic impact analysis will form two separate pieces of advice for managers and decision-makers to use when determining courses of action regarding prevention, monitoring, early detection, rapid response, management, and control of Asian carps.

Objectives

The objective of the meeting is to collect expert advice on the following aspects of the draft risk assessment documents.

• Are components missing from the draft documents?
• Are the determined risk ratings scientifically sound and defensible?
• Are the limitations of the studies clearly outlined?

Expected Publications

The National Advisory meeting will generate a proceedings report that summarizes the discussions of the participants. It will be published in the Canadian Science Advisory Secretariat (CSAS) Proceedings Series publicly available on the CSAS website. Advice resulting from the meeting will subsequently be published as a Science Advisory Report and the working papers reviewed at the meeting, which provide the support for the advice, will be published as CSAS Research Documents.

Participation

Fisheries and Oceans Canada, Great Lakes Fishery Commission, US Fish and Wildlife Service, US Geological Survey, US Sea Grant, US Army Corps of Engineers are some of the agencies with experts that will be invited to participate in this invitation-only advisory meeting.  This is not an exhaustive list of participating experts from agencies and academia.