Zebra Mussels might not be long for this world!

[t-bone]

Scientists discover invasive mussel killing bacteria
http://www.tahoedailytribune.com/article/20110130/NEWS/110129776/1056&parentprofile=1056

Now they can start working on the Asian Carp killer!

[thedude]

bacteria mutates pretty easily. i would hate to see all the zebra muscles die off and then a mutant strain start attacking something like crayfish or natural crustaceans - even fish. It would be bad news. For as many mistakes man has made to the great lakes, the accidental ones are usually less costly than than the side-effects of the intentional ones.

[Waterfoul]

bacteria mutates pretty easily. i would hate to see all the zebra muscles die off and then a mutant strain start attacking something like crayfish or natural crustaceans - even fish. It would be bad news. For as many mistakes man has made to the great lakes, the accidental ones are usually less costly than than the side-effects of the intentional ones.

Agreed.  Leave the muscles... kill the carp!

[djkimmel]

Actually, most of the Zebra mussels in Lake St. Clair are already gone. They've been out-competed by and overrun by Quagga mussels - a bigger cousin.

I do always cringe when we introduce one exotic to try to get rid of another. We're supposed to learn from the past and the past has plenty of examples of best intentions leading to a new and maybe even bigger problem.

[A Lee]

It sounds like they will be using dead cells from the bacteria and they have an equal effect as the living. I'm no scientist but i dont think the dead cells could mutate or become more of a problem if the testing shows they are only harmful to those specific mussels. Im more worried about those darn carp!

[djkimmel]

This may be different, but history is paved with fail safe ideas that ended up not being fail safe. I could say I hope someone else tests it in a completely closed system somewhere far away for about 10 years first, but that probably won't happen. Even if it does, the carp where in closed systems too and look at them now! We need to learn from the past and come up with ideas that don't involve introducing another new species to stop a previous new species.

Ideally, we should learn from so many past mistakes and stop the introduction of new species into systems period. I imagine that won't happen either. Legally or illegally, we just seem to have that in us.