#Swimmers itch michigan professional

If you combine all the data from 2015 (BEFOREВ Our Control Program tab), the lake-wide snail infection rate on Higgins Lake in 2015 was 3.0%.

#Swimmers itch michigan professional

Based on decades of professional experience working on swimmerвЂ™s itch on numerous lakes in the USA weвЂ™ve determined that any snail infection level greater than 2% corresponds to swimmerвЂ™s itch being at an epidemic level. One of the first thing we did was assess the level of swimmerвЂ™s itch on the lake by examining the lake-wide snail infection levels. In 2014 the Higgins Lake SwimmerвЂ™s Itch Organization (HLSIO) asked us to design and implement a comprehensive swimmerвЂ™s itch control program for Higgins Lake. After treatment the ducks are released unharmed near the point of capture, but on a lake where the snail intermediate hosts are notВ present. Our control programs involve capturing and treating infected ducks with the same drug that veterinarians use to kill dog and cat parasites. Until recently the only option available to lake associations and government agencies was to treat lakes with large quantities of copper sulfate, a chemical that indiscriminately kills a wide variety of plant and animal species, including the snails which harbor the itch-causing parasites.Д¬oncerned with the potential negative long-term environmental effects of using copper sulfate, the SwimmerвЂ™s Itch Solutions, LLC Team developed an alternative control program which has been used successfully on several lakes in Michigan and Maine since 1991 ( Journal of Parasitology 87(2): 424-426). We offerВ ecological and environmentally-friendly SOLUTIONS