Objective: Increase monitoring

Early detection often means the difference between eradication and ongoing maintenance to reduce the damage aquatic invasive species cause once they are established. Being able to quickly determine that a species has shown up in a new area can also help focus containment efforts and reduce the risk to nearby waters. We rely heavily on our citizen volunteers to collect data and will continue to work to support their efforts and increase volunteer participation in AIS monitoring of lakes and rivers and purple loosestrife, especially in the Great Lakes basins. While we are proud of our citizen initiatives, we also recognize the need for a statistically sound monitoring scheme that will allow us to draw confident conclusions about trends in spread over time. This multi-year statewide baseline monitoring effort was successfully started in 2011 and will continue over at least the next three years.