Lose the Hitchikers Or Lose Your Lake (Text of Entire Program) Produced by ND Game and Fish Department. In the last few years, and especially in recent months, newspaper headlines across the Midwest have chronicled an invasion of our rivers, streams and lakes. Words like water milfoil, curly-leaf pondweed, zebra mussels and silver carp jump from printed pages to alert anyone who cares about the outdoors. And with good reason. Hi. I’m Tom Jensen for the North Dakota Game and Fish Department. North Dakota has a wealth of water resources, like the Missouri River here, hundreds of fishing lakes, and thousands upon thousands of shallow wetlands that are part of the best waterfowl production landscape in North America. For thousands of years, periodic dry cycles were about the only threat to North Dakota’s waters. In times of drought, rivers ran low and lakes dried out. When water was plentiful, rivers ran high, and prairie potholes teamed with ducks. Starting in 1993, North Dakota entered one of those wet cycles that benefited not only waterfowl, but fishing opportunities as well. All across the state, receding or dry lake basins filled with water. Fish populations flourished. The number of lakes Game and Fish was managing went from about 170 to nearly 400. But times change. For a couple of years now, wet has given way to dry. Water levels have receded. This time around, however, the lack of rain or snow is not the only threat to North Dakota’s fishing waters and wetlands. From all sides, aquatic nuisance species ---- plants and animals that don’t belong, are putting our waters – whether they’re high or low -- at risk. Some aquatic nuisance species are already here, others are just a state or two away. Probably the most well known ANS in North Dakota and the upper Midwest is the common carp, introduced by European immigrants well over a century ago. These invaders live in many of the state’s lakes and rivers, and they take up space that could be used by walleyes, northern pike and other desirable game fish. The new aquatic nuisance species can be every bit as damaging as carp if they get into our waters. They crowd out native species and can plug up our waterways. Even a moderate infestation can reduce a lake’s potential for growing sportfish by 50 percent or more. And, Game and Fish can’t reverse the problem simply by stocking more gamefish. Lynn Schlueter: "Aquatic nuisance species have a number of things they need: One, they have a competition with our desirable native flora and fauna, our plants, our animals; they also modify the habitats and if you modify the habitat then you create more problems for the desirable fish." Tom: The nice thing about ANS, if there is a nice thing, is that humans can make a difference. We can stop the advance of many of these exotic plant and animal hitchhikers by not giving them a ride to another destination. For instance, the simple task of getting rid of leftover baitfish on shore, rather than dumping them in the water, can ensure that a hidden small carp, sucker or other unwanted fish doesn’t get transferred from bait bucket to lake. Anglers and other boaters are likely the primary agent for moving ANS from one body of water to another. Only one plant fragment or seed, or small fish or eggs, catching a ride on a boat or trailer is all it takes to ruin a lake or river several years down the road. When you leave a lake or river, in North Dakota or an out-of-state water, the Game and Fish Department urges you to thoroughly inspect your boat and trailer. Check the motor for plant fragments, and look carefully for weeds on the trailer. The eastern end of Lake Sakakawea, and parts of the Missouri River, are loaded with curly- leaf pondweed. We don’t want it traveling elsewhere. Drain your livewell and bilge at the ramp so water from one lake is not transferred to another. That’s likely how zebra mussels found their way from the Great Lakes to the heart of Minnesota’s lake country, less than 150 miles from our border. Personal watercraft have the same potential. Check the trailer, underside, and don’t forget the water intake hidden under the craft. It’s also a good idea to power wash your boat and trailer to get rid of those tiny plant fragments you might miss. “When you get home, it only takes a couple of minutes to make sure you aren’t transferring ANS from one body of water to another.” “Make a final inspection for vegetation.” “Then mix a solution of 20 parts water and one part bleach to disinfect the livewell and bilge to kill things like plant fragments, fish eggs and microscopic animals that may have been pumped into your boat.” “Sponge out the livewell and bilge” “It’s also a good idea to inspect tackle, and, of course, fishing rods for plant fragments.” And waterfowl hunters, don’t forget to do your part. Check your duck boat the same as a fishing boat, and make sure to clean all the mud and plant fragments from your decoys when you sack ‘em up for the day. You need more than one hand to keep track of the aquatic plants and animals that are a real threat to North Dakota waters. Let’s take a look at some that are either already here, or just waiting for an opening. Curly-leaf pondweed Curly-leaf pondweed hit the Missouri River System in the mid-1990s and has adapted well. In fact, it even thrives in North Dakota’s harshest winters. Greg Power: “It’s an exotic plant that does very well under ice conditions, which makes in pretty ideal for North Dakota.” It also grows in deeper water than most vegetation, which makes it even harder to kill... Power: “The unique thing with curly-leaf is that it can establish its root system 15 feet deep, so even though a reservoir, you can drop a reservoir 5 or 10 feet, its root system still are out deep enough that it can sustain this water drop.” When the plant dies, it breaks into fragments, which can be carried to other parts of a body of water and take root. Sometimes these plant fragments attach themselves to boat props or trailers and are even carried to other lakes and rivers..... Curly-leaf pondweed has become a blight for riverfront property owners and pleasure boaters. It tangles props and makes life miserable for anyone who comes near it. Chemical treatments like herbicides have worked on curly leaf on a temporary basis. You can get rid of it for a year, but it will keep coming back. Keeping it out of your lake is a much better option. Purple Loosestrife It’s beautiful to look at ... many gardeners favor its purple hues to add color to their flowerbeds. But this beauty has turned into a beast. It’s called purple loosestrife and it can choke the life out of a waterway in a few short years. Dean Cline works with the state department of agriculture...and this purple flower has him seeing red... Cline: “This wasn’t here three years ago, this purple loosestrife, and now we start to see the problems that it is starting to spread. The plants, which are a noxious weed in North Dakota, are still grown in domestic flower beds, and the seeds can spread by a number of sources...birds, animals, boats, people, even a gust of wind.... When the seeds reach water, like the Missouri River, they’re carried as fast as the current will allow. Once the seeds reach shore, the germinate and start growing. And that’s what you see here ... several patches of loosestrife growing wild along the river between Bismarck and Mandan ... here’s a sewer drain in the Fargo area with purple flowers germinating and spreading ... and the English Coulee in Grand Forks is filled with the stuff and it’s popping up along the Sheyenne River near Valley City That’s why the state is turning to you help eradicate this purple menace. Cline says Canada chose to ignore the situation when it started there, now it has, literally, millions of acres of the stuff. North Dakota has only a few dozen dozen places where loosestrife is growing, and we’d like to keep it that way. Eurasion Water Milfoil Eurasion water milfoil is an exotic plant that grows into thick mats on a lake’s surface. It hampers fishing, boating and swimming, and provides excess escape cover for small fish so predators cannot feed on them. When water milfoil gets in a lake, the result is a weed-choked water body with mostly small fish. This exotic plant crowds out desirable native plants and upsets nature’s balance. Milfoil reproduces by seeds, stem fragments and root runners, and it only takes one small segment to take root in a new location and start a new infestation. In 2003 North Dakota did not have any known milfoil sites, but it has spread to about 150 lakes in Minnesota, two of which are within 100 miles of our border. Zebra Mussels Zebra mussels are native to the Caspian Sea area in Asia, and apparently hitched a ride across the Atlantic Ocean in the bilge water of cargo ships. They found a new home in North America’s great lakes and have been established there since the late 1980s. Adult zebra mussels are about one-quarter to one inch long. They congregate on hard surfaces such as rocks, boat hulls and other structures in clusters of many thousands per square yard. They are notorious for clogging underwater pipes for municipal water plants. They can clog water systems of power plants and water treatment facilities, as well as irrigation systems. They can also severely reduce or eliminate native mussel species. Zebra mussels feed on plankton, the same plankton small game fish need to survive. An adult female zebra mussel can produce as many as one million eggs per year that hatch into free swimming larvae that can easily be transported by boat or bait bucket. They were recently discovered in a central Minnesota lake chain, and also were found below Gavins Point Dam on the Missouri River in South Dakota. Silver Carp Silver carp and bighead carp are exotic Asian fish that can reach 4 feet in length and 60 pounds. Originally imported to the United States in the early 1970s to remove algae from private aquaculture ponds, they escaped to the Mississippi River drainage in the 1980s. Silver carp were recently discovered in the Mississippi River as far north as Minnesota, and in the Missouri River System into South Dakota. Silver carp feed on plankton and compete directly for food with small game fish, and even large native species like paddlefish. In addition, they have the unsettling habit of leaping several feet out of the water at the sound of a boat, which, as funny as it may sound, puts boaters at risk of collisions with flying carp. Snakehead, Spiny Water Flea, Gobe, Rudd, Ruffe, New Zealand Mud Snails And the list goes on. A snakehead is discovered in Wisconsin, spiny water fleas have jumped from Great Britain to the Great Lakes to pristine northern Minnesota lakes. Gobe and Rudd and Ruffe are undesirable foreign fish that found their way to the United States and are now spreading throughout the Midwest. And from the west comes the New Zealand mud snail, which has a foothold in the Yellowstone River basin, which puts North Dakota directly in its way. Lose the Hitchhikers, Or Lose Your Lake Preventing the arrival or spread aquatic nuisance species is as important as preventing habitat destruction. Native or desirable fish and wildlife populations cannot thrive without sufficient habitat, nor can they thrive with competition from invaders. Think of it this way. Every common carp in our lakes and rivers could be a walleye, northern pike or jumbo perch instead. The challenge of keeping aquatic nuisance species outside our borders seems almost overwhelming. It can be done, if all of us – anglers, hunters, boaters and everyone else who enjoys our waters – does their part. It’s better to spend a few extra minutes to make sure you lose those hitchhikers, than to spend hundreds of thousands of angler dollars fighting them once they’re here. Remember, it’s your choice. We’d rather lose the hitchhikers than lose our lakes.