bomoseen asian clams found

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fishy1
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bomoseen asian clams found

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Vt. -
Paul Fonteyn was surprised to see a number of Vermont Fish and Wildlife employees snorkeling just off the dock of his home on the shore of Lake Bomoseen.

"I asked him what they were doing and he said they were looking for Asian clams," Fonteyn said.

Fonteyn hadn't heard of Asian clams, but it didn't make him happy to learn they are yet another invasive species that's now made its way into the Bomoseen waters.

"The milfoil of course, everybody knows milfoil in every lake in Vermont, so that's part of that issue," Fonteyn said. "The zebra mussels have come in and now the Asian clams have come in, and who knows about another species?"

"Asian clams are similar to other invasive clams and mussels like zebra mussels," said Josh Mulhollem, an aquatic invasive species biologist withe DEC.

DEC aquatic biologists visited the Lake Bomoseen area Wednesday, looking for any more of the invasive clams beyond the south shore of the lake where they were found last week, about 250 of them per square meter covering nearly 15 acres.

"They're filter feeders so they have the potential to take energy out of the aquatic ecosystem, sequester it in the bottom, thereby taking it away from other native species," Mulhollem said.

The clams, which have a yellow or green tint to them and ridges on their shells, sit on sandy bottoms in bodies of water. Mulhollem says this is the first population found in Vermont, but with an established population of them in Lake George, it's likely the clams were brought in by someone or something.

"Whether it was on sediment from an anchor, on someone's livewell from another watercraft, by someone else just a fisherman or swimmer bringing in material from another lake that is infested," Mulhollem said.

"I don't know what it can do. I know the zebra mussels have been coming in a lot of places, and while they've cleaned up the water, they can make things pretty messy, too," fisherman Bob Wetzler said.

Wetzler says he makes sure to check his boat after every ride.

"We clean it off, empty the bilge, drain all the water," he said.

The DEC is urging boaters to do this. Mulhollem says cleaning your boat is vital to stopping the spread of invasive species in the state's lakes.

As for controlling the issue, the DEC is early on in the process of deciding whether to implement benthic barriers-- large mats that suffocate anything on the lake's bottom-- but the Lake Bomoseen habitat and population needs further studies before action is taken.

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