by Don Corrigan
Rowan Herr, a junior at Kirkwood High School, reeled in a third place finish in a C-SPAN documentary competition for students. Herr also netted a $750 cash award for his environmental video efforts.
“I got interested in the topic of invasive carp because I am big on fishing,” said Herr. “I don’t want them messing with my fishing in the Lake of the Ozarks. I don’t want them in the lakes.”
The C-SPAN competition asked students to explore and analyze matters of personal, local or national importance by addressing this year’s theme — “Your Message to the President: What issue is most important to you or your community?”
Herr said he realizes invasive carp may not be an important concern for many people, but the issue might raise more concern if people knew how fast the fish are multiplying and damaging the ecology.
“I talked to experts at the Missouri Department of Conservation and I talked to the Missouri Coastal Fisheries,” explained Herr. “They are alarmed and they gave me good information.”
Herr used that information to make the case that invasive carp, with their voluminous appetites, are taking over lakes and streams and destroying the ecosystem for other underwater creatures.
Greg Trial, who heads Missouri Coastal Fisheries, reviewed Herr’s six-minute documentary after it won recognition. He calls it “spot-on” and praises it for raising the alarm about invasives.
“Mr. Herr makes a valuable point at the end of the film: In the six-minutes that the documentary ran, 2,613,895 young and hungry carp have entered the waterways,” said Trial. “I think that shows how overwhelming the problem is that we face.”
Photo by MDC Staff, courtesy Missouri Department of Conservation.
Trial said that what makes those numbers all the more staggering is the fact that carp eat two-thirds of their body weight every day, putting tremendous stress on other fish species.
Carp are a problem not only for native aquatic life, but for boaters. Asian carp tend to feed at the water’s surface and are very easily disturbed. When agitated by a boat propeller or even a sculler’s oar, they can jump up to 10 feet in the air.
Certain times of year when they are spawning, the Asian carp will jump out of the rivers. They’ve jumped in boats before, and they’ve given boaters bloody noses and more serious injuries.
“They’re a nuisance species,” said Trial. “But they are much more than that. 2025 is going to be a horrible year in the Midwest for carp causing issues and difficulties in river environments.
“We had so much spring flooding this year, and that has spread carp all over the place,” explained Trial. “The conditions for their spawning this spring are prime.”
During the 1970s, Asian carp were imported into the United States for use in commercial catfish ponds to clean them of algae which they eat in great quantities.
They also were brought in to America with the approval of the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) to be eco-friendly cleaners of sewage lagoons. Within a decade, the carp escaped confinement in ponds during flooding and entered rivers and streams.
Herr’s carp documentary was one of more than 1,700 entries from 42 states that C-SPAN received. The most popular topics addressed were climate, environment and land use; education and the cost of college; health care and mental health; gun violence, school safety and firearms; and inflation, taxes, government spending and the economy.
The annual StudentCam competition is funded by the C-SPAN Education Foundation. Videos were evaluated by a panel of educators and C-SPAN representatives based on the thoughtful examination of the competition’s theme, quality of expression and inclusion of varying sides on the topic covered.
Kirkwood High School in suburban St. Louis had an unprecedented six winners in the documentary competition. They are:
• Nora Schroeder, who won a $1,500 prize for placing second for her documentary, “The Radioactive Waste Crisis: A Hidden Hazard.”
• Rowan Herr, who won $750 for placing third for their documentary, “Invasive Carp.”
• Lillian Driscoll, who won $250 for earning an honorable mention for her documentary, “Equality Printed in the Constitution: Racial Bias in Wrongful Convictions.”
• Kylie Kohl, who won $250 for earning an honorable mention for her documentary, “Nutritional Education.”
• Riley Devers and Evie Deckert, who won a $250 cash prize for earning an honorable mention for their documentary, “Bridging the Divide.”
• Claire Krob, who won $250 for earning an honorable mention for her documentary, “The Injustice in the Mental Health System.”
To view all of the videos and to learn more about the program, please visit studentcam.org/studentcam-2025-prize-winners.
Environmental Echo 