Last week, we were notified by the Sawyer County
Aquatic Invasive Species specialist, Kristy Maki, that a form of Eurasian
Milfoil has apparently been found in Lost Land Lake. This appears to be a
hybrid species whereby our native northern milfoil and the invasive Eurasion
milfoil have somehow cross fertilized.
Given that we conducted an
extensive aquatic plant study last year with no invasives found, it appears that
these invasive plants have come into the lake this summer. We have found
it only in a few spots so far, primarily in the Wilson Bay and Landing Camp
areas of Lost Land Lake as shown below.
We do not know how it came in, however we
believe that it likely came in on a boat at the Landing Camp ramp and floated
to these locations with the prevailing winds. This is despite our
diligent efforts to prevent this via our ramp monitoring program which remains
very active.
Thus, this week Norm Bratteig, Shari Peterson,
Barb and Rex Clevenger were joined by Kristy on a "search and
destroy" mission to locate these pods and pull the invasive weeds.
See Norm, Shari and Barb watching Kristy throwing her rake into the water
below.
Once we verified the plants, Rex got into the
water with his scuba mask and a net and pulled the invasives from the roots as
shown below.
Kristy is sending these plants in for DNA testing to be sure of the identification. We are appraised that a similar hybrid plant has been found in a couple of other lakes in Sawyer County this summer.
Future Plan of Attack:
For now, the few sightings of this hybrid milfoil
have been pulled from the lake. However, it is highly unlikely that
we have successfully eradicated the plants. Rather, we will need to
aggressively step up our volunteer monitoring on future "search and
destroy" missions for the rest of the summer.
If any of you are interested in helping with
this monitoring on any of our lakes, please contact us via quiet_lakes@yahoo.com so
that we can help train you to see these plants. We plan to
illustrate this plant at our upcoming picnic on August 18th at Reel Living
Resort.
The "weed identification and pulling"
approach is recommended by the specialists as the best approach for now. Having said that, training is required to
minimize broken fragments from the weed-pulling extraction that can
re-pollinate.
In summary, we're taking this extremely
seriously and plan to be on the offensive in hopes of avoiding broader
problems.
Thanks
Your Board of Directors
