Yellow Perch - Current Management

Current Management

Managers employed management techniques at Drummond Island, MI such as harassing the cormorants and killing them as needed. Overall, the harassment deterred 90% of cormorant foraging attempts while killing less than 6% on average at each site; yellow perch abundance increased significantly due to yellow perch being the predominate prey of cormorants by total number and weight at that lake. Lakes in South Dakota without suitable spawning substrate have had conifers introduced, such as short-needle spruce, to increase both spawning habitat and hatching success. Managers have identified seven key non-authorized pathways for the introduction of the yellow perch to non-native regions: shipping, recreational and commercial boating, construction of new canals and water diversions, releases from live food fish markets, releases from the aquarium and water garden trade, use of live bait, and illegal introductions to create new fisheries. The most likely unofficial pathways are illegal introductions, dispersal through connected waterways and live bait. Many authorized introductions by natural resources agenicies have taken place as well due to the sport fishing demand.

In 2000, the parasite Heterosporis spp. was discovered in yellow perch in Wisconsin, and has since been found in Minnesota, Michigan, and Ontario. The parasite doesn’t infect people, but can infect many important sport and forage fish including the yellow perch. It doesn’t kill the infected fish, but the flesh of a severely infected fish becomes inedible when the fish dies and the spores are then spread through the water to infect another fish. That concerns commercial fisherman in the Great Lakes regions that depend on these fish. The infected perch are not marketable. The current infection rates are 5% of harvest. Viral hemorrhagic septicemia (VHS) is another serious disease in perch in the Great Lakes region. It has already killed thousands of drum in Lake Ontario and caused a large die-off of yellow perch in Lake Erie in 2006. Ontario is restricting commercial bait licenses as a precaution against this disease. Outside its native range, very few diseases or parasites have been found.