(Spirit Lake)– The Iowa DNR is putting out an annual reminder as boats, docks and hoists come out of the water for another season. Jason Euchner, an Aquatic Vegetation Management Biologist with the DNR’s Fisheries Bureau, says it’s important to inspect those items for any aquatic invasive species…
“It’s just important for surveillance. You know there’s docks in a lot of public waters and as those docks come out one of the places that invasive species like zebra mussels would settle would be on docks, dock posts, anything that would in the water there that you would pull out every season. Those, if reported to us, will help us track where things like zebra mussels have potentially gotten into new water bodies.”
He says typically they don’t get many new reports this time of the year, but even then Euchner says it’s important to be vigilant…
“For the most part we’ve been pretty good at surveillance with our internal programs to kind of know where zebra mussels are. So no, we do not, but it is still important if we have a new lake that we don’t have record of.”
Euchner also has some advice when it comes to storing docks for the offseason…
“Make sure it’s stored in the same watershed as the lake, just because we don’t want zebra mussels going from one water body to another.”
Euchner reminds everyone it is illegal in Iowa to transport prohibited aquatic invasive species or any aquatic plants on water-related equipment in Iowa.
Iowa law also requires boaters to drain all water from boats and equipment before leaving a water access and to keep drain plugs removed during transport. It is also illegal to introduce any live fish, except for hooked bait, into public waters in Iowa.
