Farewell to 

March 1998

Dear readers,

We regret to inform you that the Zebra Mussel Update newsletter is no more. Federal funding for the ZMU has been terminated, and personnel changes at the Wisconsin and Ohio Sea Grant programs prevent us from pursuing alternative sources of funding. In particular, yours truly is leaving Wisconsin Sea Grant this summer [1998] to join the faculty of Cornell University as a fish ecologist. That means no more zebra mussels for Cliff.

After eight years of publication, it is perhaps appropriate to sum up this effort by pointing out that, to a scientist, no news is often as interesting as "news" – that is, negative observations are often more interesting than positive ones. Even so, scientists find it more difficult to get publicity for the results of studies with "negative" observations – by that I mean observations that fail to demonstrate expected impacts, as opposed to detrimental impacts.

Zebra mussels illustrate this point perfectly. Much attention has been paid to places where zebra mussels have been found, as well as situations where they had a dramatic impact. But there are numerous instances of no news regarding zebra mussels that are often more informative than those in locations in which the mussel has thrived. These are my favorite examples:

• Zebra mussels have yet to be sighted in the Missouri River;
  (Update: On April 12, l999, power plant employees found a 24mm-long zebra mussel on a water intake structure on the Missouri River l5 miles south of Sioux City, Iowa. This was the first confirmed siting of a zebra mussel in the Missouri River. Only one was located; monitoring continues.)

• Despite intense monitoring, zebra mussels haven't been found in any additional Wisconsin lakes since 1995; (Update: A few months after this was written, zebra mussels were discovered in three previously uninfested southeastern Wisconsin lakes.  As of 2002, the number of inland waters with established zebra mussel populations totaled 37. The state has more than 14,000 inland lakes.)

• No quagga mussels have been found yet in Lake Michigan; and

• No adult zebra mussels have ever been found in the Susquehanna River following several years of veliger sightings in the early 1990s.

But no news isn’t as exciting as "new" news, even when the former has more merit. Some examples from my files:

• Numerous water utilities and power plants have coped with zebra mussels with only modest expenditures for prevention and control measures;

• Freshwater sponges haven't controlled zebra mussel populations;

• Common carp haven't consumed every last zebra mussel;

• Red pepper in boat paint hasn’t been used to prevent zebra mussel attachment;

• Zebra mussels haven’t been used to treat wastewater effluent;

• Zebra mussels haven’t been added to animal feed as a commercial product;

• Extracts from the African soapberry haven't been commercially used to control zebra mussels; and

• Potassium hasn't been used as a commercially available control for zebra mussels.

My file drawer is full of news articles proclaiming that all of these were likely to occur; yet when these expectations didn’t pan out, that "news" attracted no attention.

I’m certain that zebra mussels are not good, but – as I’ve said before – they may not be as bad as we might think. Recently, someone asked me whether I was trying to say, "Don’t worry, be happy." No, I replied, my point is that we should "worry, but be happy." It’s just hard to do that.

Thank you for the opportunity to serve you over the last eight years. We recommend the following alternative sources of zebra mussel information:

• Dreissena! – Published six times per year by New York Sea Grant’s National Aquatic Nuisance Species Clearinghouse. Subscriptions are $30 annually. Contact Charles O’Neill, Jr., at the State University of New York at Brockport, toll-free 800/285-2285, voice 716/395-2516, fax 716/395-2466.

• SGNIS – Sea Grant’s Non-Indigenous Species website, hosted by Illinois-Indiana Sea Grant at Purdue University. Features peer-reviewed information about zebra mussels and a range of other non-indigenous aquatic nuisance species.

• ANS Update – A free quarterly newsletter published by Great Lakes Panel on Aquatic Nuisance Species. Contact Kathe Glassner-Shwayder at the Great Lakes Commission in Ann Arbor, Mich., phone 734/665-9135, fax 734/665-4370.

• ZMU archive – An archive of the text of all 30 issues of Wisconsin Sea Grant's Zebra Mussel Update, in case you get nostalgic, but also a journal documenting the early responses, hopes and fears regarding the zebra mussel's spread across the Great Lakes region and beyond during the 1990-97 period.

Best wishes,

Clifford Kraft
Nonindigenous Species Specialist
University of Wisconsin Sea Grant Advisory Services Program

This page created March 26, 1998
Last updated 11 July 2002 by Wittman
All contents copyright 1998 University of Wisconsin Sea Grant Institute

http://www.seagrant.wisc.edu/communications/publications/zmu/zmu.htm