Confirmed - Quagga Mussels Found In Thousands From Glen Canyon Dam To Bullfrog Bay

[hatrack]

Oops.

Like a bad rumor spread with malicious intent, invasive and destructive quagga mussels have finally taken hold at the massive Lake Powell reservoir on the Utah/Arizona border. Glen Canyon National Recreation Area officials announced Tuesday that "thousands" of adult quagga mussels have been found from Glen Canyon Dam to Bullfrog Bay, some 95 miles up the lake.

The mussels have caused extensive damage across the country since landing in the Great Lakes in the 1980s. State officials estimate an infestation in Utah would cost more than $15 million annually if the 6,000 miles of pipes and canals and numerous dams become coated with the creatures.

The mussels can also severely impact fisheries, aquatic life and tourism as a result of sharp shells lining the beaches of popular recreation areas. "I can picture what Lake Powell is going to look like and it isn’t pleasant," said Greg Sheehan, director of the Utah Division of Wildlife Resources (DWR). "Every beautiful sandstone outcropping will be encrusted with snails. The days of running barefoot on the beaches will be gone."

The growing number of mussels at Lake Powell — the recreation area’s website says more than 1,300 adult mussels have been removed — does not mean attempts to prevent other waters will be halted.

EDIT

http://www.sltrib.com/sltrib/news/57596058-78/mussels-lake-powell-quagga.html.csp

[Scuba]

1. Sad to learn of this, quagga's are a huge problem. More ....

Article is from a long series on the Great Lakes and invasive species that resulted in the author (Dan Egan) being a Pulitzer Prize finalist.

http://www.jsonline.com/news/usandworld/40037927.html

[TwilightGardener]

2. Spread by recreational boaters. Boating (at least the motorized kind) should

be completely banned in waters where zebras and quaggas haven't been detected yet.

[GliderGuider]

9. That's really just a delaying tactic. they will arrive eventually anyway.

Plus, think of the outrage from the "sports" fishers who won't be able to run their bass boats in those clean waters...

Better to think of it as evolution in action. Every species on the planet was once "invasive".

[cprise]

12. The onset of the 'human transportation' effect is too sudden

Changes like this don't give enough species time to adapt, so the result is a degradation of ecosystems.

[mopinko]

3. maybe i am stupid, but

i feel like invading species should be just left alone. we are in a mass extinction. this will cause mass invasions.
evolution will sort it out.
seems like not only the least of our worries, but, in the end, our best hope. as ecosystems get tipped over, those invaders will stabilize them. they might still be useless to us, but that is all to the good, imho.

costs to human should be borne with a smile.

am i stupid?

eta-just seems we have bigger fish to fry.

[dbackjon]

5. As politely as I can answer - YES, you are being stupid

By your logic, we shouldn't worry about anything.

Starving children? Eh, we are all going to die anyways.
Genocide? See above.


The impact of these species go far beyond the impact to humans - generally, they reek havoc with native species. They displace native species

[mopinko]

6. i didn't say anything about anything.

this does not preclude doing whatever we can to stabilize habitat, to remediate toxins, to stop f'ing polluting shit in the first place.
common sense prevention is fine, too.

your strawman is absurd.

these things are rear end actions. we need to get focused on saving the planet. i just don't see worrying about trout fishing on lake michigan when we might all be on the edge of frying, or being blown away.

[dbackjon]

7. We can be capible of doing many things at once

[hunter]

11. Invasive species in an artificial lake... what's not to love?

Since these things have already made their appearance downstream, it's not so much of a horror as the dam itself.

My more radical solution in this case isn't to live with the invasive species but to do our descendants a favor and remove the dam itself.

This is the wretched dam that was a few sheets of plywood from failure in the floods of 1983. Had the dam failed it probably would have been one of the greater man-made non-war catastrophes of the twentieth century.

But you are correct in a certain manner. Once an invasive species takes hold it's pretty much beyond our control and evolution takes over unless the species has a fairly specific predator or pathogen that can be introduced along with it. Even in that case, evolution still takes over.

I've lived in California most of my life. European garden snails have always been a horrible pest in my gardens and my parent's gardens. But once the European starlings arrived the snails became much less of a problem because the starlings eat them.

[dixiegrrrrl]

4. Are they edible?

I do like mussels.

[hunter]

8. From wikipedia:

"Although quaggas are edible for humans, eating them is not recommended due to the accumulation of toxins, pollutants, and microorganisms within the mussels' bodies."

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Quagga_mussel

[mopinko]

10. as if

there are any species about which this cannot be said.