New Sightings in Wisconsin

From January, 1995 (update #23)

SILVER LAKE - Zebra mussels were discovered Oct. 2 in Kenosha County's Silver Lake by Jerry Adams, who found the mussels while removing a dock. Adams subsequently reported the sighting to Wisconsin Department of Natural Resource (DNR) officials, who confirmed his identification. One of Silver Lake's outlets feeds into the Fox River, which flows south into Illinois. Adams is former president of Silver Lake's lake association and had previously conducted water quality monitoring tests as part of the DNR volunteer monitoring program. In mid-October, Adams found additional mussels at the south end of the lake in shoreline gravel and attached to plastic barrels used as part of a floating dock. Wisconsin Sea Grant Advisory Services Education Specialist Jim Lubner conducted a separate zebra mussel inspection of Silver Lake in late October and found several isolated zebra mussels before being guided to a pontoon boat encrusted with hundreds of mussels. "Boat Doc" owner Bill Erb said he had seen zebra mussels in Silver Lake over the last two years. Erb also said that he had heard that there were zebra mussels in nearby Camp and Center lakes. Lubner checked out those and other nearby lakes, but found no zebra mussels. Lubner also distributed zebra mussel identification cards to local officials. Further inspections will be conducted next year as part of a cooperative effort between the DNR and UW Sea Grant to assess the movement of zebra mussels into Wisconsin inland lakes.

ID: 199501-2.

The Zebra Mussel Update was a 4- to 8-page quarterly national newsletter published by the University of Wisconsin Sea Grant Institute from May 1990 through May 1997. The ZMU documented the spread of the zebra mussel -- an exotic nuisance mussel -- through North America's freshwater environments, especially the Great Lakes, and on efforts to control it.