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Thousands of historic shipwrecks in the US are being threatened by wood-destroying mussels
New York Post ^ | 9/23/23 | Jon Levine

Posted on 09/24/2023 6:17:57 AM PDT by cotton1706

They’re hungry, hungry mollusks.

Thousands of historic shipwrecks sunk in the American Great Lakes are at risk of being lost forever thanks to invasive, wood-destroying mussels.

The lakes are home to an estimated 6,000 shipwrecks, with some dating back to the 17th century, according to estimates from the University of Buffalo.

The Quagga mussel, originally native to the waters of Russia and Ukraine, is believed to have arrived in the Great Lakes in 1989 — possibly as a result of ballast dumps from transoceanic freighters traversing the lakes.

The population of Quagga mussels has exploded in the waters of the once pristine lakes, where near-perfect visibility made the wrecks easy to see even decades after they went down.

Now the Quagga mussels have taken over, scientists say.

(Excerpt) Read more at msn.com ...


TOPICS: Culture/Society; News/Current Events
KEYWORDS: godsgravesglyphs; greatlakes; jfk; quaggamussel; shipwreck; shipwrecks; stlawrenceseaway; wreck; wrecks
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To: cotton1706; SunkenCiv

SOS

Save Our Shipwrecks!

Even Kramer didn’t see this one coming.


21 posted on 09/24/2023 6:43:34 AM PDT by Larry Lucido (Donate! Don't just post clickbait!)
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To: cotton1706
“The Quagga mussel, originally native to the waters of Russia and Ukraine, is believed to have arrived in the Great Lakes in 1989.”

They were fleeing communism and corruption and are now just trying to make new homes here in the USA by eating abandoned sunken ships. Leave illegal alien mussels alone!


22 posted on 09/24/2023 6:43:52 AM PDT by fireman15 (Irritating people are the grit from which we fashion our pearl. I provide the grit. You'e Welcome.)
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To: NautiNurse

Google says you can eat them if they’re cooked thoroughly, but they’re not really worth the effort.


23 posted on 09/24/2023 6:48:31 AM PDT by Tax-chick (Sounds like a great idea, with the best of intentions. What could possibly go wrong?)
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To: cotton1706

I had the exact same reaction. And by the way it talks about “pristine clear waters”. Just a few years ago “they” were going apocalyptic over the zebra mussell as an invasive species until they discovered that it actually made the water clearer. Same thing with this...it’s actually CLEANING the garbage out of the water faster.


24 posted on 09/24/2023 6:50:00 AM PDT by DouglasKC
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To: cotton1706

Decomposition. It happens to you, too.


25 posted on 09/24/2023 7:04:25 AM PDT by blackdog ((Z28.310) My dog Sam eats purple flowers.)
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To: cotton1706

if it’s a wreck, so what?

whatever was wanted should have been gotten soon after the wreck.

whatever wasn’t gotten was forfeited to nature.


26 posted on 09/24/2023 7:07:56 AM PDT by b4me
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To: cotton1706

There’s a lot of things going on these days, but ship- eating mussels it not high on the radar.


27 posted on 09/24/2023 7:12:56 AM PDT by Rennes Templar (Come back, President Trump.)
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To: DouglasKC

What they do to water intakes and outlets is really problematic. Ship engines, water plants, dams and everything in the water gets encrusted and then blocked by these damn invasive creatures.


28 posted on 09/24/2023 7:16:16 AM PDT by KC Burke
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To: cotton1706

Those canals weren’t such a good idea after all.


29 posted on 09/24/2023 7:26:07 AM PDT by fella ("As it was before Noah so shall it be again," )
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To: mewzilla

Lol!


30 posted on 09/24/2023 7:37:23 AM PDT by skr (Righteousness exalteth a nation: but sin is a reproach to any people. - Proverbs 14:34)
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To: cotton1706

Quagga mussels are an EU thing

We call them Zebra Mussels here.


31 posted on 09/24/2023 7:45:16 AM PDT by PGR88
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To: mewzilla

Think of the sunken ships as sacrificial — to save still floating (and useful) ones from attack. Ships routinely have sacrificial metal strips to protect against hull corrosion.

How about research into dumping poisons around such wrecks to see if the critters are repelled?


32 posted on 09/24/2023 7:55:54 AM PDT by bobbo666 (Baizuo)
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To: Larry Lucido; StayAt HomeMother; Ernest_at_the_Beach; 1ofmanyfree; 21twelve; 24Karet; ...
Thanks Larry Lucido. Is anyone here a marine biologist?

33 posted on 09/24/2023 8:20:39 AM PDT by SunkenCiv (NeverTrumpin' -- it's not just for DNC shills anymore -- oh, wait, yeah it is.)
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To: KC Burke
What they do to water intakes and outlets is really problematic.

Finally somebody points out that shipwrecks are the very least of the problems handed to Great Lakes dwellers by this foreign mussel species.

Don't mention the St. Lawrence Seaway to old time fishermen who saw the lake trout population destroyed by the sea lamprey eels dumped in the lakes by freighters.

34 posted on 09/24/2023 8:20:50 AM PDT by Chad C. Mulligan
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To: equaviator

Those Zebra Mussels have been giving the Ludington Pumped Storage Plant fits for years.


35 posted on 09/24/2023 8:23:32 AM PDT by OldMissileer (Atlas, Titan, Minuteman, PK. Winners of the Cold War)
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To: silent majority rising

Well she excels in going down so why not


36 posted on 09/24/2023 8:29:31 AM PDT by al baby (I know its the way the measure the cooling capability )
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To: SunkenCiv

Buzzards got to eat too.


37 posted on 09/24/2023 8:42:01 AM PDT by BenLurkin (The above is not a statement of fact. It is either opinion, or satire, or both.)
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To: equaviator

Detroit, Between Lake St. Clair and Lake Erie, was destroyed by ever higher taxes, grifting and debt from democrat rule.
Mussels are the least of Michigan’s problems!


38 posted on 09/24/2023 9:27:00 AM PDT by outofsalt (If history teaches us anything, it's that history rarely teaches anything.)
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To: cotton1706

This is why the peace bridge hasn’t been rebuilt. Sad stories about how the birds can’t fly around a new structure. Don’t do anything if the old one is historic.


39 posted on 09/24/2023 10:14:38 AM PDT by RebelTXRose (Our Lady of Fatima, Pray for us! PRAY THE ROSARY!)
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To: cotton1706

This is why the peace bridge hasn’t been rebuilt. Sad stories about how the birds can’t fly around a new structure. Don’t do anything if the old one is historic.


40 posted on 09/24/2023 10:14:52 AM PDT by RebelTXRose (Our Lady of Fatima, Pray for us! PRAY THE ROSARY!)
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