Kansas City, Kan. ? State wildlife officials in Kansas and Missouri are reviewing how they keep nonnative species from invading their respective states after a near-miss involving minnows.

Missouri officials spotted a small minnow called the brook stickleback mixed in with the more common fathead minnows shipped to about 20 retail bait shops in Missouri and Kansas this spring from Minnesota Bait and Fly Co. of Kansas City, Kan.

After the discovery, conservation agents in both states asked bait dealers to go through their minnow tanks and remove all the brook sticklebacks they could find.

The brook stickleback is not a legal bait fish in Missouri or Kansas because the fish, common in northern states, are not native. While they are not an immediate threat to local fish populations, brook sticklebacks that escape or are dumped from bait buckets could establish local populations.

“This shows how there’s a weakness in the bait trade, and how nonnative species can move around from state to state,” said Jason Goeckler, aquatic invasive species biologist for the Kansas Department of Wildlife and Parks.

Officials also are worried that the fish could carry a virus that is killing sport fish in the Great Lakes region, Goeckler said. A significant loss of sport fish could put a serious dent in the tourism industry in that region, as well as in parts of Kansas and Missouri.