05/05/2006

Editorial

Every new alien species poses new risk to Lakes

Before 1988 only a handful of Michigan residents likely knew — or cared — what a zebra mussel was. What would happen if a few were dumped into the Earth's freshwater seas, the Great Lakes, was anybody's guess.

Now, much to our regret, we know all too well what the zebra mussel is and what it can do when it reproduces unchecked. And unless we are incredibly lucky, everyone will soon know just what a New Zealand mudsnail is, too, and what it can do to our lakes.

All because the Great Lakes shipping industry, the U.S. Coast Guard, the Interior Department, the U.S. Senate and a host of other agencies haven't done the job that American citizens expect of them.

The tiny mudsnails, which are native to New Zealand, have shown up in the Duluth-Superior Harbor and the St. Louis River estuary on Lake Superior near Duluth, Minn.

The snails were first found in North America in 1987 in the Snake River in Idaho and have invaded Rocky Mountain trout streams since then.

In some Western states, according to the Associated Press, the snails have displaced native insects, snails and other invertebrates that fish depend on for food.

Like zebra mussels, the problem with the mudsnail is that it has no natural predators in the Great Lakes that would keep its population in check. Mudsnails reproduce by cloning; one snail and its offspring can generate hundreds of thousands of clones each year, the AP reported.

They were spotted in Lake Ontario in 1991 and Thunder Bay, Ontario, in 2001.

Researchers told the AP that Lake Superior is too cold for them, but harbors and estuaries are just fine.

When the zebra mussel was first spotted in 1988, there was no real feeling of immediate peril. Lake St. Clair was far away, and upstream all the way. There was real shock and dismay, however, when the mussels were spotted in Grand Traverse Bay just three years later.

The mudsnail may not pose any real problem in the Great Lakes. The water may be too cold, a predator may come along to keep things in balance.

The better odds, perhaps, are that the snails will adapt and flourish and become yet another threat to Great Lakes fish.

Until someone gets serious about preventing ocean-going ships that enter the Great Lakes from dumping their ballast water here, we're in for plenty more mudsnails.

And sooner or later, some alien species introduced to the lakes will do real and lasting damage, and we'll be reduced to pointing fingers at each other and saying "I told you so."