Cliff Claven on Aquatic Nuisance Species

- It's a little known fact that zebra mussels were domesticated in Mesopotamia and were also used in China as guard animals for the forbidden city.

Carpocalypse

                                 Coming soon to a bayou near you

If the current flooding along the Mississippi River were not bad enough, a U.S. Geological Survey biologist and Asian carp expert says the fish are likely to show up in places where Mississippi flood waters intruded.

“We may now be finding them in lakes, ponds, bayous, anywhere the river water went. Those things will be full of carp now.”

LINK (Via:The Duluth News Tribune)

How many inspectors does it take to find aquatic hitchhikers?

This is the most likely way invasive species are going to take up residence in a waterway near you.

A tenacious zebra mussel that hitchhiked across the country, attached to a Michigan boat bought by an Oregon man, was stopped by inspectors there before it could invade the waters of that state.

In April Oregon inspectors detected quagga mussels on a boat entering Oregon from Idaho.

LINK (Via: mLive)

A 40’ Catalina Sailboat, “Sequel”,  that was being hauled from the Great Lakes to a new owner in Vancouver, BC was stopped at the Spokane Port of Entry.  During a standard commercial vehicle inspection the alert WSP staff noticed that the vessel was contaminated with zebra mussels.

LINK Via: The Spokesman Review)

The primary source of invasive species is ship ballast water and a coalition of environmental groups has finally gotten the EPA to act.

“This settlement represents the first time in 35 years that EPA has agreed to control discharges of ballast water from ships in the same way that other industries are controlled when they discharge pollution to the nation’s waters,” said Nina Bell, executive director of Northwest Environmental Advocates.

Her group was one of the organizations that took EPA to court a decade ago to force the agency to regulate ballast dumping. When the agency adopted permit requirements in 2008, environmental groups sued again, challenging them as too weak.

LINK (Via: The LA Times)

For reference, these are the environmental groups that have been fighting the EPA on ballast discharge for 10 years.

Natural Resources Defense Council

National Wildlife Federation

Northwest Environmental Advocates

Alliance for the Great Lakes

Prairie Rivers Network

Scientists Test New Asian Carp Gun - Peoria opts for Wolverine

The war against invasive carp has escalated from electric fences to high velocity water cannons.

Meanwhile in Peroria.

Asian Carp meets an episode from Jackass. (Via: Deadspin)

Sharks Taught to Hunt Alien Lionfish

                                    You sure I can eat this thing?

"At the beginning, the divers just killed lionfish and fed sharks with them to get the sharks to develop a taste," said photographer Antonio Busiello, who observed the process in action.

"In the second step, to have the sharks develop an interest in hunting them, divers started to leave wounded lionfish so that the sharks could taste them. After a while, [the sharks] did start to hunt them and go after them."

LINK (Via: National Geographic)

And You Thought Rock Snot Was Bad?

Researchers in Alaska are planning a strategy to attack an invasive species with a heck of a nasty nickname: rock vomit.

LINK (Via: MSNBC)