Zebra Mussel Sightings in Wisconsin

From June 28, 1990 (update #2)

KENOSHA - The first living adult zebra in Lake Michigan was found June 19 by Kenosha resident Ken Fredrickson. The half-inch-long zebra mussel was attached to a 1" by 4" piece of wood Fredrickson snagged while fishing from the Kenosha harbor breakwater. He reported the find a day later to Arthur Brooks at the UW-Milwaukee Center for Great Lakes Studies, who is supervising the Wisconsin Zebra Mussel Watch for that area. The find was confirmed by U.S. EPA Great Lakes National Program official Glenn Warren, a former student of Brooks' who happens to live in Kenosha. However, no other adults have been found, and no veligers were detected in water samples taken from Kenosha harbor waters by Wisconsin Zebra Mussel Watch personnel on Monday (June 25).

SUPERIOR - American Steamship Company vessel C.E. Wilson, undergoing its routine five-year U.S. Coast Guard inspection at the Fraser Shipyard recently, was found to contain zebra mussels on its rudder gear box and in its sea chest. The mussels were 3/4" to 1-1/4" long and presumably had colonized the vessel during transit through Lake Erie waters.

STURGEON BAY - Zebra mussels were found on several commercial vessels drydocked here this past winter and spring, according to Lt. Sam Bromley, executive officer of the U.S. Coast Guard Marine Inspection Office in Sturgeon Bay. All of the vessels had previously traveled through zebra mussel-infested waters of Lake Erie. Lt. Bromley commented that "it is now very common to find zebra mussels on virtually all commercial ships in drydock here."

GREEN BAY - Despite persistent published reports that zebra mussels have been found on buoys in Green Bay (most recently in Wisconsin Natural Resources magazine), there have been no confirmed sightings of zebra mussels in the bay to date.

ID: 19900628-2.

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.