MCLA MEETING ANNOUNCEMENT
Thursday, September 26th, 2019
Please mark your calendars and join us
at the Manitowoc County Office building @ 4319 Expo Drive,
Room 300, at 6:30pm.
Public and Guests are encouraged to attend.

Our program will be on internal phosphorus loading in our lakes with guest speaker Ron Gerrits from Bullhead Lake. Bullhead Lake is in the process of doing a feasibility study to determine if an alum treatment can be conducted to improve water quality conditions. Ron will highlight the findings of the project.

Our second speaker will be  the President of the Kewaunee County Lake Association, Randy Kleiman. He will discuss the successful alum treatment conducted on east Alaska lake in Kewaunee County to control the phosphorus internal loading.

The MCLA business meeting will follow.

Waterfowl hunters do their part to stop the spread of aquatic invasive species

About the time the Green Bay Packers start fulfilling our football dreams, Wisconsin’s hunters prepare to take to the waters for the 2019 waterfowl hunting season on opening weekend, September 28-29. It will also begin the fourth year of Waterfowl Hunter Aquatic Invasive Species (AIS) Outreach, when teams of DNR staff, statewide AIS Partners and volunteers will be stationed at access points on opening days across the state to talk to hunters about AIS and what they can do to stop the spread. Staff at Glacierland RC& D will be out at the Marshes and other hunting hotspots around Sheboygan and Manitowoc Counties to assist hunters with preventative actions and answer any invasive species questions.

Modeled after the successful Clean Boats Clean Waters (CBCW) program that reaches boaters all summer long, boat inspectors/educators conduct a hunting version of the CBCW survey and talk with them about specific aspects of duck hunting that risk AIS movement. Mud, for example, can hide seeds, the bulbils of starry stonewort, and the eggs or larvae of tiny invaders, such as spiny water fleas. Of particular concern to the hunters is the Faucet snail. These snails carry intestinal flukes that can kill thousands of ducks if they eat them.

If you have experience as a Clean Boats, Clean Waters boat inspector and want to volunteer during the duck hunting season, please contact Samantha Lammers: Invasive Species Coordinator with Glacierland RC&D at 920-946-5921 or at samantha.lammers@glacierlandrcd.org.

Just a few minutes of preventative action can protect our hunting tradition for generations to come. Before launching into and leaving a waterbody, hunters must:

• Inspect waders, boats, trailers, motors and hunting equipment, including boots, blinds and dogs.
• Remove all plants, animals and mud.
• Drain all water from decoys, boats, motors, live wells and other hunting equipment.
• Never move plants or live fish away from a water body.

A special consideration for waterfowl hunters is to remove all seed heads and roots when using vegetation for your duck blinds. It is important to note that it is illegal to use phragmites in counties where the plant is listed as prohibited by NR40, in general these counties include the western half of Wisconsin.

Glacierland RC&D is a nonprofit, grass-roots organization that is committed to wise use and conservation of our natural resources and human resources. We promote sustainability on all levels- environmental, social, and economic- by bringing together agencies, organizations, and people to work on projects addressing issues of sustainability in Wisconsin. For more information about Glacierland, visit our website at: www.glacierlandrcd.org

For more information about aquatic invasive species, including where they are prohibited and restricted, in Wisconsin, visit this WDNR webpage.

Ever question your catch?

There’s a new FREE fish ID tool available from the University of Wisconsin Sea Grant Institute.

It’s loaded with great photos and data for 174 fish! You can identify fish by name or by appearance.

Visit https://www.seagrant.wisc.edu/fish-id/
to check it out.

There’s also a mobile app version for iOS or Android that you can use out on the lake, even when you don’t have an internet connection.

This fish identification tool was developed by the University of Wisconsin Center for Limnology, Wisconsin Department of Natural Resources, and the University of Wisconsin Sea Grant Institute.

Starry stonewort (Nitellopsis obtusa), a submerged annual macroalga, is known to cause nuisance conditions in MI, NY and IN. It can outcompete other vegetation and forms monotypic stands that can reduce fish spawning habitat.

Learn about Manitowoc’s latest AIS threat at the next MCLA meeting on Wednesday, June 26th at 6:30pm

Please join us at the Manitowoc County Office building @ 4319 Expo Drive, Room 300. Public and Guests are encouraged to attend.

DNR Fish Manager Steve Hogler will be our guest speaker, Steve will be reviewing last year’s fish survey findings on Wilke and Shoe lakes in the County and discuss DNR’s plans for surveying lakes this year. He will shed some light on the fish die off of Bullheads on Silver Lake this past month. This will be an opportunity to ask questions regarding the fisheries of the area and discuss the special panfish regulations on Long, Bullhead, English and Harpts lakes. Read more