These are zebra mussels. They are everywhere, and in the billions. A zebra mussel is a fingernail-sized mollusk that is native to the Caspian Seas, but came to Lake Erie in the ballast of a ocean-going freighter. Zebra mussels have now spread to thousands of inland lakes, including the Great Lakes. A female zebra mussel can produce up to a million eggs per year. Zebra mussels have been found in Great Lakes such as Lake Erie and in densities as high as a million per square metre. There is another kind of mussel and it is called the quagga mussel. This mussel is a larger cousin of the zebra mussel. It's like the zebra mussel, but can tolerate a wider range of environments. It spreads with amazing speed. It also filters plankton from the surrounding water and deposits waste on the lake bottom, where it gathers in large clumps. The Quagga Mussel unlike the zebra Mussel can cling to both soft and hard surfaces and can live in deeper water. Both of these mussels are on the unwanted list for invasive species in our Great Lakes.

A female zebra mussel can produce up to a million eggs per year. Zebra mussels have been found in Great Lakes such as Lake Erie and in densities as high as a million per square metre.

It is amazing how many thousands for the zebra mussels wash up on the beach every year. What used to be a beautiful beach is now covered with dead zebra mussel shells. Everything that sinks to the bottom is also covered, including ship wrecks from years ago.

Yes, the waters of Lake Erie seem to have become cleaner since their arrival and the pollution levels have declined, but at what cost? Zebra mussels take over places where local fish lay their eggs and spawn. The kill food sources for other species and they change the oxygen content of the lake.

You can go to their site and read the whole article is you like. Just click here.

Elizabeth Binning is one of their environmental reporters. She found out that the caves are in danger and that scientists won't hesitate to close the Waitomo Caves if the threat of irreversible damage, caused by people breathing, becomes too great.

The CO2 we breathe out can seriously damage the fragile limestone features. In 1979, people started noticing a big drop in glow-worm numbers. The reason was because they changed the cave opening. That increased the airflow and dried out the glow worm grotto. When They discovered what they had done they fixed it up. Scientists from Auckland University began investigating the cave environment and the impact humans have on it. They have discovered that just a few people can dramatically change the amount of heat, humidity and moisture in the caves. Carbon dioxide from people's breath gathers. If there are too many people in the cave at once the air flowing around is not strong enough to carry the carbon dioxide outside. It reacts with moisture in the air and corrodes the formations which have taken hundreds of thousands of years to form.. The glow worms don't like a dry environment and they die off.

Imagine a world without any tourism. All you would do is stay at home in Port Dover or Waitomo, or even Beckely, whatever town you live in...no going south, no going up north. It would be a disaster...complete snores. Being conservation students, we're very interested in any type of pollution item. Food is an item that could pollute any natural resource in any tourist type location. May we point out that any location that tourists would admire would especially need that you follow certain rules before entering a town. Feel like you're one of our sidewalks getting walked on and then getting trash thrown all over you? It wouldn't feel good, would it? So, don't pollute! Use the trash cans and public washrooms!

Strip Mining in West Virginia

Have you traveled through West Virginia and seen the mountainsides that have no trees? Mountains that look like they've been cut away?  This is strip mining and it was devasting in its time. Some of the strip mines have been cleaned up but others need a lot of work in order to be environmentally friendly again.

Why do we pollute?

Return to our Brainstorming

Info by Kelsey & Kasey - Canada
Photos from New Zealand and Canada
Proofreading and editing - West Virginia and New Zealand