Water samples taken from the Muskingum River last fall found the bighead carp's DNA. The Nature Conservancy in collaboration with the Muskingum Watershed Conservancy District, researchers from Central Michigan University and the Ohio Department of Natural Resources has come up with a report.

Out of the 222 samples taken from the river, 10 from it were tested positive for bighead carp eDNA. The presence of eDNA means that the fish could be present in the Muskingum some 80 miles north where the river joins the Ohio at Marietta.

Asian carp has already been present in the Ohio River from more than 10 years now. John Navarro of the Ohio Department of Natural Resources said the recent report makes it very clear that Asian carp are not slowing down and are reaching up the waterways.

For past 20 years, efforts are being made to control the Asian carp which refers to four invasive species including bighead, silver, grass and black carp. All these species pose different levels of threat to the waterways of the US and the Great Lakes.

In 1970s, bighead and silver carp were especially imported to control algae in fish farms in Arkansas. But it reached the Mississippi River system and since then, these two species have surging across the watershed. They survive in nutrient rich waters, like in the Muskingum River or western Lake Erie.

These carps are considered as dangerous to the ecosystem as it gets next to impossible to get the situation under control once they enter the water system.