Drum and Mussels

From December 17, 1993 (update #19)

GREEN BAY, Wis.- Although Lake Erie fisheries biologists have reported intense freshwater drum feeding on zebra mussels, drum collected late this summer in southern Green Bay had no mussels in their stomachs.

National Biological Survey biologist John French reported that Lake Erie drum as small as 200 mm were feeding on zebra mussels. However, St. Norbert College student Eric Golden analyzed stomach contents of 19 large (243 - 457 mm) drum collected August 24 from a Green Bay location heavily infested with zebra mussels and found no zebra mussels. He did find lots of midge larvae. One explanation, perhaps, is that the mussel infestation had only been heavy for six weeks.

St. Norbert biologist Phil Cochran, who supervised Golden's project, speculated that it may take drum a while to become acclimated to a newly available food resource like zebra mussels.

ID: 19931217-9.

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.