Eurasian Watermilfoil Invasive species are becoming a big problem in today’s society. They are not native to the local habitat. A lot of times, invasive species are extraordinarily good at adapting to the environment. However, they can block out and do harm to other native organisms. Due to Minnesota having a tremendous amount of lakes, it opens up doors for new invasive species to come in and take over. A popular specie that has been taking over lakes lately are zebra mussels. Although another invasive species that doesn't get too much attention is Eurasian Watermilfoil. Eurasian watermilfoil was brought over to North America from Europe around the 1950s. It spread inland from boat users and waterbirds near the 1970s. Watermilfoil grows
I live on a lake, and I have personally seen people landing their boats with weeds attached to the trailer. The spread of invasive species will never stop. I think that the DNR should just figure out ways to slow it down. At the Gull Lake boat access across the road from the Gull Lake Dam, there is a boat and trailer cleaning station. All one has to do is drive their vehicle over the platform until the boat is in the designated spot and begin washing it off with the high powered hose. It is basically a small car wash for your boat. This would be a great way to stop the invasion of foreign species, but you can’t make people use it to wash their boat and trailer. However, I believe that a DNR employee or conservation officer could attend the station and make sure that boaters wash their boats and trailers. Although there obviously isn’t enough employees to maintain all the boat accesses in Minnesota, but I do think that it would be helpful to have the wash stations at boat landings on a lot of the big lakes. One way to pay for these stations is from revenue earned from selling fishing and hunting