Aquatic Invasive Species Appears to be Found on Lost Land Lake

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