Another Mussel-Covered Fish Tag

From January, 1995 (update #23)

GREEN BAY, Wis. - According to Wisconsin DNR biologist Dave Bougie, zebra mussels were again found this fall attached to a thin plastic tag implanted in a six-year-old walleye captured in the Fox River near Voyageur Park. Previously, a northern pike with mussel-covered tags was recovered from the bay of Green Bay (see ZMU 21). Tagged in April 1994 near the DePere Dam, the walleye was recaptured six months later and had grown about 19 mm (one inch), accumulating nearly 20 small (less than 5 mm long) zebra mussels on its plastic-coated tag. Bougie said mussels slid easily from the tag when the fish was retrieved. While several hundred tagged fish were recovered this fall, he said this was the only one with attached zebra mussels.

ID: 199501-13.

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.