“Captain Nate” Wallick skis across the Illinois River, tow rope in one hand, net in the other. As the boat churns the water, silver carp erupt into the air around him.

His mission: catch the notoriously skittish airborne fish mid-flight and slam-dunk them through a basketball hoop and into a bucket below. The Peoria-based charter boat captain calls this unnatural conflagration of sports “skarping,” and it’s bringing attention to a problem that’s anything but a game: the threat of invasive carp.

Invasive carp aren’t just a downstream story to Milwaukee; they’re an existential threat to the ecology of its rivers and the Great Lakes beyond. These fish, 2-3 feet long, bulldoze ecosystems, breeding by the millions, consuming native aquatic plants and algae, outcompeting native fish like walle

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