Thank you to DLIA member, Ron Witthoff, for attending the 9/18/17 Michigan Swimmer's Itch Partnership Conference in Traverse City. Ron’s report is located on our website for all to read - under Publications, Published Resources.
DLIA has remained up-to-date with the Swimmer's Itch (SI) issue over its 50-year existence. In more recent years, about 10 years ago, a very active committee with John Verhoeven as Chair, considered methods of reducing the incidence of SI on our lake. The committee worked with Dr. Harvey Blankespoor who was developing a 3-year research project to remove the Common Merganser and track the SI incidences. The project required volunteers and held a high price tag (about $125,000). A few members opposed manipulating the ecosystem. DLIA decided not to participate, and Dr. Blankespoor moved forward to other lakes in counties south of us.
The Michigan Swimmer's Itch Partnership was formed in 2014, and DLIA attends meetings, members have housed researchers from Oakland University’s research team, and Douglas Lake was the control lake in a 3-year, 4-lake research project conducted by Dr Curt Blankespoor (findings were presented at the 2016 DLIA Annual Meeting).