Saturday I was talking to a SE Wi trapper and waterfront land owner. He said he's not targeting his muskrats anymore because they are eating invasive zebra mussels in front of his property. I found this very interesting. I did a bit of research. 1st off, I didn't know zebra mussels were prevelant in Wi. Secondly, I didn't know muskrat eat them. Is it just me or does this present an interesting potential: 1) I'm glad there may be methods to target invasive mussels. BUT, should we trappers be careful what we wish for...if muskrats put a dent in zebra mussels, might some landowners or governmental agencies not want muskrats trapped. Hmmm....

Guess it will come down to which one they find more destructive to their cause.

I know a lake that's full of both...sooooo.

Zebra mussels Filter/ clean up the water.

They also clog up the water intakes.

Muskrats love mussels. Dunno about zebras but they eat a lot of the native ones here. And I get some big rats out of the rivers where that is a main source of food.

Muskrats get huge around here when you find them near mussel beds in the salt marshes.

Is that a good thing?

It was for Lake eerie. At least for a while. Then the eventually starve out anything that depends on plankton/phytoplankton

Some of the biggest, best muskrats you'll catch are ones that have been feeding on mussels, clams, etc.

Zebra mussels are not good. It's just a matter of time before they drag them up north in their bilge.

[quote=Boco]Zebra mussels Filter/ clean up the water.[/quowell ALittle to well they have sterilized lakes because they have no real predator.

For muskrats however. I thought they only fed on plant roots?

Muskrats love mussels.

Muskrats are rodents. They eat whatever they can find.

They also disrupt the food web and out-compete native mussels and bait fish

in intraspecific or interspecific competition for algae and phyto-plankton.


Worst of all, zebra mussels bio-accumulate water soluble toxins in their bodies

which are then transferred to creatures which prey upon them.

In the Great Lakes, they are responsible for massive Botulism outbreaks which kill

large numbers of loons, gulls, diver ducks, and many game fishes

such as Muskellunge, Lake Sturgeon, Small mouth Bass, Common Carp, Sheepshead.


The transfer of Botulism, and Viral Hemorrhagic Septicemia (VHS) are accomplished

when zebra mussels are eaten by another invasive species,

the Round Goby bait fish, which are than eaten by Birds and Game fishes

killing huge numbers of these species which then wash up on our beaches,

and are then eaten by scavengers which eat the fly maggots off of the dead carcasses

and then they in turn die from the botulism, etc.

Yes BOCO,

Zebra mussels do filter the water of algae and plankton ,

but their toxic side effects are environmentally devastating.

w

Al Gore is that you?

Same with lake Michigan. It used to be a murky living lake that people thought was dirty. Now its a crystal clear lifeless (exaggerating) lake with an underminded ecosystem.

Noticed that when we were in escanaba for the NTA. Took my kayak out into the lil Bay de noc and that water I could see bottoms 10-15 feet down

AL Gore was a politician.

Not a Limnologist.

As a low information Canadian,

You should stick to commenting on subjects you know something about.

Like pond hockey, or trapping pine squirrels !!

w

From what i was told by lake Erie charter captains, Zebra mussels are cleaning the water too well doing what Walleyed is saying. They clean the plankton and algae which is needed in the food chain.

Udder than that, i know nothing about them except what they look like.

(we also started catching Gobees (spelling?) last couple times i was there.) they claimed they ate fish eggs and we killed every one we caught.

They also extremely annoying for anglers. You can't even touch the bottom with a lure without bringing up a half dozen or so of the things.

walleyed, you have any links to studies on the things you mentioned? I can probably pull some up, but curious if you had any that you found more valuable than others.