Fisherman Claude Delley rattles the metal frame of his net against the side of his boat on Switzerland’s Lake Neuchatel, trying to shake off dozens of tiny, brown mussels.
Some plop back into the water, but most stay put. The sharp shells of the creatures — a fast-spreading, invasive species originally from the Black Sea — work away at the netting, meaning he has to replace it twice as often as before.
“There is no solution,” he said. “As soon as the mussel clings to the net, it stays there.”
Photo: Reuters
It is not just the nets. The quagga mussels have clogged up underwater pipelines.
Stephan Jacquet, one of a team of researchers studying the species, said he had seen Swiss native crayfish, whose population is in decline, encrusted in the creatures, threatening suffocation.
The mussels also consume huge amounts of microscopic plants called phytoplankton, leaving less for other lake creatures to eat.
“Potentially all biological categories and major links in the food chain can be impacted,” said Jacquet, who works at the INRAE CARRTEL laboratory further south in Thonon-les-Bains.
The mussels were first detected in Switzerland in the River Rhine near Basel in 2014. Since then they have spread to colonize at least six Swiss lakes, including Lake Geneva.
The population, which has few predators, is poised to multiply up to 20 times in Switzerland in the next two decades, said a study last year by aquatic research institute Eawag and Swiss universities based on trends seen in the Great Lakes of the US since the 1980s.
The mussels are already present in France and Germany.
It is not known exactly how each lake was invaded, but mussel larvae can spread on rivers or currents and be introduced into new bodies of water when boats or equipment are moved.
Once in, the species multiplies rapidly with one individual capable of producing hundreds of thousands of larvae.
“When we look underwater, we can see that it has an exponential colonization, very significant, as these ecosystems are now completely covered, from the surface to the depths,” Jacquet said.
Some Swiss lakes have been spared, including Lake Zurich and Lake Lucerne.
In some places, authorities are now considering new rules for cleaning and shipping boats to stop the spread.
Millions of dollars have poured into bets on who will win the US presidential election after a last-minute court ruling opened up gambling on the vote, upping the stakes on a too-close-to-call race between US Vice President Kamala Harris and former US president Donald Trump that has already put voters on edge. Contracts for a Harris victory were trading between 48 and 50 percent in favor of the Democrat on Friday on Interactive Brokers, a firm that has taken advantage of a legal opening created earlier this month in the country’s long running regulatory battle over election markets. With just a month
US Vice President and Democratic presidential candidate Kamala Harris is in “excellent health” and fit for the presidency, according to a medical report published by the White House on Saturday as she challenged her rival, former US president Donald Trump, to publish his own health records. “Vice President Harris remains in excellent health,” her physician Joshua Simmons said in the report, adding that she “possesses the physical and mental resiliency required to successfully execute the duties of the presidency.” Speaking to reporters ahead of a trip to North Carolina, Harris called Trump’s unwillingness to publish his records “a further example
North Korea blew up sections of roads in its own territory that are part of links once used to connect the southern part of the peninsula with the north, in a show of defiance after it accused Seoul of flying drones over Pyongyang. North Korea detonated bombs north of its eastern and western borders at around noon yesterday, South Korea’s Joint Chiefs of Staff (JCS) said. South Korea’s military later fired off warning shots within its border, said the JCS, which also confirmed there were no reports of damage in South Korea from the detonations. A video released by the South Korean
RUSSIAN INPUT: Russian foreign minister Sergei Lavrov called Washington’s actions in Asia ‘destructive,’ accusing it of being the reason for the ‘militarization’ of Japan The US is concerned about China’s “increasingly dangerous and unlawful” activities in the disputed South China Sea, US Secretary of State Antony Blinken told ASEAN leaders yesterday during an annual summit, and pledged that Washington would continue to uphold freedom of navigation in the region. The 10-member ASEAN meeting with Blinken followed a series of confrontations at sea between China and ASEAN members Philippines and Vietnam. “We are very concerned about China’s increasingly dangerous and unlawful activities in the South China Sea which have injured people, harm vessels from ASEAN nations and contradict commitments to peaceful resolutions of disputes,” said Blinken, who