Red Alert!
What to Do When Aliens Come to a Waterway Near You
By Tamia Nelson
tamia@paddling.net
August 14, 2007
You heard it here first: Canoe Country is under
siege, and the Threat Assessment Team is hoisting the red warning flags.
Their message? Enemy aliens are invading our waters. That sounds alarming,
doesn't it? And it is. How can we fight back? Let's begin by spotlighting the
poster boys of this alien invasion: the Dreissena twins, aka zebra and
quagga mussels (Dreissena polymorpha and D. bugensis, to
those in the know). These bad boys cling to boat hulls, pilings, and other
underwater surfaces, multiplying shamelessly and displacing native mussels.
The predictable result? Localized extinctions of native species. Moreover,
the twin troublemakers infiltrate water pipes of every description, from
municipal water-treatment intakes to power-plant coolant systems to the
raw-water intake pipes on outboard motors. That's not the worst news,
however. Quaggas are also bioterrorists, known to harbor Clostridium
botulinum, the organism responsible for botulism. Yellow perch chow down
on quaggas — it seems that these popular panfish have developed a taste
for the tiny mussels over the years — and then … you
guessed it … the botulism organism moves up the food chain.
I'll bet you can also guess who's at the top of the chain. Us, that's who.
This certainly puts the traditional shore lunch in a different perspective,
doesn't it? Bon appétit!
OK. That's the threat scenario in brief. And just where did these alien
invaders come from? No one is saying for sure, but it's thought that the
Dreissena twins were stowaways, hitchhiking from the Old World to the
New in the ballast water of ocean-going ships. In any case, they were first
ID'd when they established a forward outpost in the Great Lakes. But they
weren't content to stay put. They had big plans. They didn't just want to
move in. They were determined to take over. And they're following through. In
fact, they've already pushed inland as far as the Colorado watershed. How did
they move so far, so fast? That's painfully obvious. They've made unwitting
collaborators of their natural enemies — boaters. Yes, you heard it
right. People like you and me are aiding and abetting the enemy. Here's one
way it can happen:
You've had a great day kayaking on a lake a couple of hours from home
— the water was so clear, nothing at all like it used to be!
— but the sun's sliding down toward the western horizon now. You and
your buddies are tired and hungry, and you've got a long drive ahead. So you
don't waste time. You haul out, lift your
boats onto your roof racks,
and lash 'em down. Then you toss your gear into the back of your cars and
drive off. A stream of water sluices down your windshield as you hit the
first bump, reminding you that you didn't do a very good job of draining the
bilge. Still, you figure a couple of pints of water can't hurt anything,
right? Wrong. The next day you're on your way to another lake, and
you're still carrying some water around in the bilge of your boat. Now for
the bad news: water isn't all you're carrying.
The Big Picture
A healthy ecosystem is a little bit like the small town I grew up in.
People knew their neighbors, and while it would be stretching things to say
that everybody always got along with everybody else, feuds were rare and
serious crime was almost nonexistent. Moreover, everyone had a role in the
town's economic life. The railroad linked local farmers to their markets. The
little service stations (gas stations did a lot more than sell coffee and gas
back then; they also fixed cars), soda fountains, and corner stores provided
after-school jobs for high school kids, while the seed plant and the hospital
employed the kids' parents. But the times, they were already a-changin'. A
new interstate brought an influx of urban migrants, each one of them hoping
to escape the crime and congestion of the city. They didn't work in the seed
plant and they didn't buy their groceries at the corner market. They had jobs
in offices in the city and shopped in suburban supermarkets. They also had a
lot more money than the locals. Before long, the seed plant closed. Next, the
freight depot shut down, and the trains stopped running. Then the markets
went, one by one. And the service stations gave way to convenience stores.
Finally, the hospital shut its doors. The old families who'd lived in the
place for generations sold up or died out. Their kids moved on. Within a
couple of decades, the small town that I knew was gone. In its stead was just
another bedroom community. A place to sleep, but not a place to live and
work. Real life now went on somewhere else.
Alien species can have much the same effect on a waterway. They disrupt
the "economic" fabric of the ecosystem. Native species are displaced. In some
cases, they die out altogether. A new balance is struck, and the new order
may be much less diverse — and much less stable — than the old. The
case of purple loosestrife is instructive. It's a beautiful plant, an escaped
ornamental with roots in the Old World, that can now be seen in wetlands and
along road margins throughout Canoe Country. But its beauty conceals a dark
secret. Purple loosestrife elbows out cattails and other natives, with
results that are often hard to predict. Sometimes species diversity plummets
and productivity declines. At other times, diversity and productivity are
unchanged, but the character — species composition — of the watery
neighborhood alters profoundly. One thing is certain: change of some sort is
inevitable whenever an alien muscles in, and native species usually bear the
brunt.
What does this mean to paddlers? Perhaps it won't make much difference to
canoeists and kayakers who paddle purely for exercise, and for whom the
natural world is simply a backdrop against which they test their muscles and
lungs. But for the rest of us, and especially for wildlife watchers and birders,
any change in the familiar waterscape is likely to be wrenching. While change
can't be avoided in the long term — natural equilibria are always fluid,
and change is truly the natural order of things — too-rapid change gives
us paddlers no time to adjust our mental maps. The anglers and
hunters among our ranks are also vulnerable. Wetting a fly or throwing a
spinner is pointless if your favorite fish have moved on or died off. And a
duck blind is a cold and lonely place when there are no birds gabbling
overhead.
Alien invaders trigger larger concerns, of course. Wildfire
risk increases following infestations of pine bark and Asian longhorned
beetles. Eurasian water milfoil chokes waterways across North America,
closing down recreational beaches and disrupting operations at water
treatment plants. Yet this is just a small sample of the many threats. The
list of alien invaders is already long, and it grows longer every day. Can
anything be done to stem the tide? Yes. While the invaders have many allies
besides recreational boaters — even climate change plays a role —
canoeists and kayakers can do much to …
Avoid Helping the Enemy
Even in life-or-death struggles, we humans like to believe we're playing
by the rules. Maybe that's why almost every navy has a Code of Conduct,
either express or implicit. And our navy of small-boat enthusiasts is no
exception. As I see it, in the war against alien invaders, the paddler's Code
of Conduct is really pretty simple:
- Assume that the enemy is everywhere. Just because you don't see
alien invaders, that doesn't mean they're not around. Look for official
warning signs at the put-in, too. Regulatory agencies often post advisory
notices near infested waters. Follow their recommendations to the letter.
- Clean up your act! Drain all bilge water from your boat before
hitting the road for home (or the next waterway), being sure to leave
yourself enough time at day's end to sponge out the last few ounces. Remove
and dry float bags,
then dry the undersurfaces of the deck and the recesses of storage
compartments. If at all possible, let your boat's hull bake dry in the sun.
Clean off all traces of mud and
waterweed, too — and don't forget to clean your gear. Even your shoes can
carry invaders to new territories. And give Fido a rub-down with a towel,
while you're at it.
- Don't pick up hitchhikers. In particular, don't dump live bait
that you hauled in from Outside into backcountry ponds or streams, and don't
transport firewood from one place to another. If you use a water-cooled
outboard, drain the raw-water cooling system thoroughly at the end of the
day, then flush it with clean water when you get home. (Don't know how? Many
state fish and wildlife agencies offer booklets to help you.) Sponge
water from all the recesses in gear cases and cowlings, as well.
- Join your waterway's "Neighborhood Watch." Learn as much as you
can about alien threats to your local waters, and report any enemy sightings
to authorities. Include photos
whenever possible.
There you have it. A paddler's Code of Conduct in the war against alien
invaders. Sure, it's a nuisance to have to follow a set of rules like these,
but what's the alternative? Our enemies need help to carry out their plan of
conquest, and all too often they get that help from us. It's high time we
stopped collaborating. We can't rid our waters of the Dreissena twins,
or wave a wand and make Eurasian water milfoil go away, or rip out all the
purple loosestrife from every road margin and wetland. But at least we can
avoid giving aid and comfort to the enemy in the years to come. And that's a
start.
Zebra and quagga mussels. Purple loosestrife. Eurasian water milfoil.
These alien invaders have already established beachheads in Canoe Country,
and more are on the way. For far too long paddlers have been sitting back,
content to leave the fight to others. Now it's time we joined the ranks of
the Resistance. Let the paddler's Code of Conduct be your guide. Your
Waterway Needs YOU. Today. So what are you waiting for?
Copyright © 2007 by Verloren Hoop Productions. All rights
reserved.