Associate dean and professor Harvey Bootsma and his lab are a small team that’s dedicated to a monumental task: finding a way to kill invasive quagga mussels that blanket the lake bottom and starve whitefish to death.
Whitefish face collapse in lakes Michigan and Huron unless invasive mussels that are killing the fish are controlled. While scientists look for a miracle solution, they hope to aid whitefish by clearing mussels from spawning reefs. It’s an effort powered by putty knives, tarps and a massive steel plate known as the ‘mussel masher’.