First Zebra Mussels Sighted in Green Bay Waters

From June 14, 1991 (update #8)

ESCANABA, Mich. -- About two dozen zebra mussels were found here May 22 on sheet piling removed for repair from the Chicago & Northwestern Transportation Company ore dock, according to dock supervisor Dean Choquette. The mussels were found on 10 one-foot-wide pilings, each of which extended to a depth of 40 feet. The mussels ranged in size from 10 mm to 25 mm (0.4-1 inch). Escanaba, located at the northern end of Green Bay, Lake Michigan, is a major port for exporting iron ore from Michigan's Upper Peninsula. Major shipments received at the port include jet fuel for the K.I. Sawyer airbase and coal for a local power plant.

GREEN BAY -- A single zebra mussel about 10 mm (0.4 of an inch) long was found June 9 in southern Green Bay, Lake Michigan, by biologist Katherine Rill of Oshkosh. Rill was participating in a Wisconsin Society for Ornithology field trip and found the mussel while examining debris on the shoreline by Point au Sable about six miles northeast of the city of Green Bay. The mussel was found attached to the shell of a native Unionid clam.

ID: 19910614-2.

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.