Higgins Lake Swimmer's Itch Organization

The successful relocation program has been suspended.

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How Merganser Relocation Breaks the Cycle

• The key to the Higgins Lake control program is interrupting the parasite’s life cycle at the duck stage.
• Merganser hens and their young ducklings are relocated from Higgins Lake to suitable habitat where they can thrive without the Stagnicola snails necessary to continue the parasite’s life cycle.
• The objective is not simply to remove ducks from Higgins Lake. It is to move the hen and her vulnerable young together to appropriate habitat where the parasite cannot complete its normal cycle.
• When the infected ducklings are removed from the Higgins Lake environment, they can no longer continue shedding the parasite’s eggs into Higgins Lake. Without that input, the number of newly infected snails can decline, which in turn reduces the number of cercariae released into the water.
• The Result: Interrupting the Cycle
• The concept can be illustrated simply:
• Merganser ducks → parasite eggs → Stagnicola snails → cercariae → ducks
• Humans become involved only accidentally:
• Cercariae → human skin → Swimmer’s itch
• By relocating the merganser hen and ducklings to suitable habitat without the necessary snail host, the program interrupts the cycle before it can continue in Higgins Lake.
• The goal is therefore not to eliminate mergansers from the environment. It is to break the specific parasite cycle that produces swimmer’s itch at Higgins Lake while providing the ducks with suitable habitat where they can continue to thrive.
• This approach is based on addressing the source of the problem rather than simply treating the symptoms experienced by swimmers.

Relocation Works

• Swimmer’s itch at Higgins Lake is caused by a parasite that infects primarily Merganser ducks and Stagnicola snails.
• Merganser ducklings shed large amounts of the parasite which infect the Stagnicola snails. The infected snails overwinter, releasing the parasite the next year.
• Relocating the hen and young ducklings greatly reduces swimmer’s itch in the lake in the following year.
• Ducklings and their hen are moved to habitat that is great for mergansers and has no Stagnicola snails so no swimmer’s itch can be spread into the new habitat waters.

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Proven Results

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Relocation