25, an aquatics department employee at a Petco store in Seattle’s Crown Hill neighborhood reported noticing something concerning in a shipment of Betta Buddy Marimo Balls, an aquarium plant often used in betta fish habitats. So Anderson knew the detection of the mussels at a Petco in Seattle would require a response where every second counts. It took only seven years for the mussels to spread from the Great Lakes through the Mississippi River region. “They reproduce, when I say exponentially, we're talking exponentially. He discovered that cables on marina superstructures that had been less than an inch in diameter were so encased with mussels that they swelled to the width of tuna cans. After responding to a 2006 quagga mussel invasion in Lake Mead in Nevada, he returned to the lake in 2008. A USGS employee said the agency has heard that at least 12 states have been affected as of Friday afternoon.Īnderson witnessed the devastation similar invasive mussels bring firsthand. Currently, states in the region spend $13.2 million a year on prevention efforts.įrom Tuesday to Friday afternoon, zebra mussel sightings have popped up in Washington state, as well as Wyoming, Oregon, Colorado, Florida, Idaho, New York, Pennsylvania and Montana. taxpayers more than $1 billion in damage annually, and that excludes financial impacts to agriculture and the outdoors industry.Īccording to Stephen Phillips with the Pacific States Marine Fisheries Commission, the estimated annual costs of failing to prevent an invasion of these animals into the Pacific Northwest states and western Canadian provinces exceeds $500 million. They even hamper shipping by covering hulls and piers, sometimes even infiltrating boats to the extent that their engines explode. They disrupt farms, drinking water and electricity by plugging electric and hydro utilities’ pipes, screens and filters. introduction.ĭreissenid mussels like zebra mussels and quagga mussels blanket lake bottoms, wreaking havoc on aquatic ecosystems and recreational activities such as fishing. David Cowles, a biology professor at Walla Walla University, who has been keeping tabs on zebra mussels since their U.S. “There is no way to get rid of them without destroying native species as well, so when they invade an area, it is presumably a permanent change,” says Dr. Since they were first discovered in the Great Lakes in 1986, these rapid-spawning animals have infested every watershed in the Lower 48 except the Columbia River Basin. But they are disastrous almost everywhere else. Zebra mussels - fingernail-sized mollusks named for their striped shells - are benign in their native Black Sea and Caspian Sea ecosystems. Anderson, who runs Fish and Wildlife's 10-person Aquatic Invasive Species Unit, says his life has been “chaos” since then. View map.“All of a sudden, my phone line started going off,” he said Thursday at noon. Lake Ray Hubbard is classified as “suspect” for zebra mussels. Invasive mussels or their larvae have been detected on multiple occasions in several lakes, which are designated as “positive.” Lakes Dunlap, Fishing Hole, Lavon, and McQueeney, as well as river reaches downstream on the Colorado, Guadalupe, Lampasas, Leon, Little, Red, and Trinity rivers, are classified as “positive” for zebra mussels and Lake Amistad is classified as “positive” for both zebra and quagga mussels. Ivie, Pflugerville, Placid, Randell (local Denison access only), Ray Roberts, Richland Chambers, Stillhouse Hollow, Texoma, Travis, Walter E. The following Texas lakes are classified as “infested” with zebra mussels: Austin, Belton, Bridgeport, Brownwood, Buchanan, Canyon, Dean Gilbert (a 45-acre Community Fishing Lake in Sherman), Diversion (private lake downstream of Medina Lake), Eagle Mountain, Georgetown, Granger, Grapevine, Inks, Lady Bird, Lewisville, Livingston, Lyndon B. Invasive mussels can cause tremendous environmental and economic damage – hurting aquatic life, damaging your boat, hindering water recreation and even threatening your water supply. One zebra or quagga mussel can produce up to one million microscopic larvae per year. ![]() They grow to only about 1 ½ inches and develop a distinctive zebra-striped shell. ![]() Zebra and Quagga mussels are a small, destructive invasive species that can spread across Texas by hitching a ride on boats and trailers.
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