Volunteers in the Northwoods will be visiting bridges this Saturday…and taking an inventory of aquatic invasives they find.
Oneida County Aquatic Invasive Species Coordinator Michele Sadauskus says they’ll canvass several areas to get a count of what species are present at different bridges.
“We’re hoping not to find anything new. A lot of these areas don’t have a lot of information or data collected on them. So we’re going into a lot of these areas with a fresh look at them.”
It’s part of a statewide effort coordinated by the River Alliance of Wisconsin.
Volunteers will participate in Rhinelander, Minocqua, Three Lakes, Mercer and Land O’ Lakes. They’ll be checking for high-priority invasives that might be found at bridge locations.
Sadauskus says most aquatic invasive species monitoring focuses on boat landings, since they’re a major point of access. But bridges are also well-traveled, and could be avenues for new invasive plants and animals.
“Bridge crossings often times transport a lot of people over them. People use them to get onto water bodies or get to destinations. So we’re at landings a lot of the time –we’re looking at lakes and resorts and that type of things, but we’re giving a little attention to bridge crossings.”
Sadauskus says if people want to participate, there’s room for more volunteers for Saturday’s survey event.
