The threat of quagga mussel invasions into Alberta lakes is very real. Data from Idaho indicates that boats move between the US and Canada regularly. Mussels are able to survive for up to thirty days outside of the water, so there is ample time for a boat to be transported from an infested lake in the United States or Eastern Canada and enter an Alberta body of water carrying live mussels, ready to reproduce. Boaters may not be aware that they have the mussels on board because the larvae are microscopic and can live in small amounts of water. Currently Canada has no inspection stations to monitor or prevent the introduction.

To illustrate the risk, on July 3, 2012 a power boat that was transported from Arizona to BC's Shuswap Lake was removed from the water by the Department of Fisheries and Oceans. The presence of quagga mussels was confirmed although the sample taken proved them to be dead at the time. There is still a risk that some of the boat's internal water sources, the bilge and pump systems, could have contained living specimens and further investigation is taking place.

Small and strong. Invasive mussels can attach to anything. Native mussels do not, so if its attached its invasive.

The spread of zebra mussels in the United States has been extraordinary. Because of their unique ability to attach to boats they quickly spread throughout the great lakes and eventually into a large portion of the Mississippi river drainage. In 2007, zebra and quagga mussels were discovered west of the 100th meridian for the fist time. Lake Mead in Nevada was the initial place of discovery. The quagga mussel population was very large in the lake and had gone undetected for an unknown number of years. Since then, either zebra or quagga mussels have been found in Arizona, California, Colorado, Texas and Utah and they are in 34 states in total. In the eastern US and in Ontario and Quebec, both species continue to disperse into small lakes in the Great Lakes region and into places where no populations had previously existed.

Attention Boaters - Stop Aquatic Hitchhikers

INSPECT and CLEAN your boat, trailer & equipment and clean off mud, plants and animals. 
DRAIN water from your boat, bilge, bait buckets, transom & motor. 
DRY everything for at least five days before re-launching. 

This process will also help to stop other non-native aquatic species such as didymo (Didymosphenia geminata), New Zealand mud snails, purple loosestrife and Eurasian water milfoil that threaten Alberta's lakes and streams. These species will hitch a ride on boats and trailers, float tubes, waders/wading boots and fishing equipment and have devastating and irreversible impacts on our lakes and streams. Please also clean and dry fishing equipment (including waders and wading boots) and re-inspect all boating, fishing, and wading equipment before moving from one water body to the next. Boats and ATVs purchased outside of Alberta should also be cleaned, drained and dried before returning home.

More information is available from the ESRD website. Detailed information can be found at http://www.protectyourwaters.net/ or http://www.100thmeridian.org/