Not Just a Fish Story — Seattle Startup's Technology Is Designed to Protect Waterways From Peril

Photo provided by Whooshh Innovations

The following post was written and/or published as a collaboration between Benzinga’s in-house sponsored content team and a financial partner of Benzinga.

Photo provided by Whooshh Innovations

The following post was written and/or published as a collaboration between Benzinga’s in-house sponsored content team and a financial partner of Benzinga.

The climate change debate has primarily focused on temperature change, melting icebergs, and increasingly turbulent weather patterns affecting everything from forest fire containment to issues with crop management. More and more climate action advocates are looking at streams, rivers, and lakes to point to a possible crisis affecting the world’s fish population. The World Economic Forum recently sounded an alarm by saying, “The world’s capacity to respond to water security risks is in doubt.” Companies like Mowi MHGVY, Leroy Seafood Group LYSFF, and others directly tied to the fishing and water industries are likely watching these developments closely.

Warming waters and a lack of oxygen have reportedly affected the ability for salmon to spawn in California, steelhead in the Columbia River are disappearing, and once-crowded Montana trout streams have recently resembled the runoff from a garden hose. With all these climate issues affecting the sport of fishing and the harvesting of fish for consumption, a new “whooshh” can now be heard on the landscape. 

Whooshh Innovations says they are ignoring one of the biggest culprits of all, invasive fish species in these waterways, that because of rapid climate change are outcompeting native fish species. As a result, Asian carp reportedly represent 80% of the biomass in major Midwest rivers. Whooshh notes that the total biomass in these rivers is not significantly changing, but invasive species are replacing the native species, and they have developed a technology that can do something about it. 

A “Stream”-ing Platform for Fish 

Whooshh Innovations has thrown a line out into the water with an ambitious goal of saving native fish, removing invasive fish, and making more efficient use of our renewable energy sources. They have even given it a name - “selective fish passage”.  Uncontrolled fish passage for all species past dams can be devastating to the environment if it accelerates the spread of invasive species. In addition to salmon, climate change negatively affects fish migration species, including eel lamprey and shad, because of habitat loss and invasive species.

One of the significant challenges is understanding how to attract invasive carp species. The carp’s high reproductive rates and feeding habits have adversely affected watershed food-chain nutrients and have clogged rivers with their explosive population growth, disrupting the natural ecosystem and threatening its sustainability. 

Between 12 million and 15 million Asian carp have been caught by commercial fishermen in Kentucky alone since 2018, a number that is impressive when standing alone, but pales in comparison when one understands that one invasive carp can produce one million eggs in a single year. In the Midwest, the carp have spread rapidly through rivers and now are less than 10 miles from the Great Lakes, threatening the habitat of many native fish species. 

Whooshh was recently engaged in an effort to image large invasive Carp through its proprietary FishL Recognition™ scanner on the Illinois River. The nonindigenous feeders are believed to quickly destroy aquatic ecosystems by eating the same food needed by native fish populations to satisfy their voracious appetites. These carp eat 5%-40% of their body weight every single day.  That’s impressive and scary. 

The Whooshh system is designed to be deployed at pinch points in the river system and rapidly image fish volitionally passing through, enabling the company’s GatekeeperTM to perform real-time sorting, enabling real-time Asian carp removal while returning native species to the river, without the bycatch commercial fishing operations would cause. The company is currently partnering with the Illinois Department of Natural Resources, The Nature Conservancy in Illinois, and the University of Illinois.

Whooshh has also engaged its team to offer solutions for the lower Snake River dams in southeast Washington with a plan to provide immediate help for endangered salmon and steelhead.  The proposed $67 million project replaces fish ladders on all 4 lower Snake River dams with its Whooshh Passage Portal™ and would remove the invasive American shad that are clogging up the ladders and delaying the migrating salmon The company claims its solution is 500 times less expensive than the $33.5 billion plan proposed by U.S. Rep. Mike Simpson (R-Idaho) to breach the 4 lower Snake River dams and could be deployed within a year, so the next 10 years do not cause the salmon to go extinct.

Whooshh believes its Passage Portals™ could replace fish ladders at the 4 dams, and hydropower owners would eventually use the water that usually flows through the ladders to generate power instead. The company says that added power generation could be in operation by 2023 and would more than pay for the purchase price in 10 years.

With Whooshh’s stated goal of saving fish, feeding the planet, and helping grow clean  energy, the company is looking for financial partners on StartEngine to mitigate the impacts of climate change head on.

You can also learn more about Whooshh Innovations at www.whooshh.com.

Benzinga may receive monetary compensation by the issuer, or its agency, for publicizing the offering of the issuer’s securities. Benzinga and the issuer of this offering make no promises, representations, warranties, or guarantees that any of the services will result in a profit or will not result in a loss.

The preceding post was written and/or published as a collaboration between Benzinga’s in-house sponsored content team and a financial partner of Benzinga. Although the piece is not and should not be construed as editorial content, the sponsored content team works to ensure that any and all information contained within is true and accurate to the best of their knowledge and research. This content is for informational purposes only and not intended to be investing advice.