When I said there were three or four cases, I should have said there have been three or four of the bays that have been invaded on the east side.
Our current study suggests that the natural spread of the larvae is insufficient to explain the movement, bay to bay. It has probably been the movement of perhaps boats that have not been cleaned, because there is very little opportunity to clean marine boats, unlike boats that are in use in fresh water and are taken out periodically. More likely it would be the movement of aquaculture equipment. I'm not an expert in the way things move around, but it's a business and there is a lot of material being moved from place to place. Just in the processing, the harvesting, the movement, one needs equipment. To be honest, I would not blame.... Even scientists now have realized that our activities might lead to the spread of a species as well, and we take our own precautions now to sterilize our equipment and in the use of our boats.
Again, I can't overemphasize the importance of working with the people who are out there in the field, the mussel growers, emphasizing the importance to them.
When I say “sloppy”, I don't mean that the industry is sloppy. I'm just saying that in every business there are people who will take shortcuts. As I said before, there is no way you're ever going to have a 100% solution.
When I first started working with zebra mussels I proposed something to people, because they had a wonderful list of things to do to prevent the spread of zebra mussels between lakes, and I said that was all very silly. I had the perfect idea: burn every boat that leaves the water. They said, “But how could we ever do that?” I said, “Well, there have been governments in this world where, if the dictator said that every boat gets burned, it could happen”.
I don't use the example lightly. If it was a human disease that was being spread from water to water, you bet we could stop boats from being moved from water to water. We could do things if we really wanted to, but that takes the planning, the preparation, and the explanation so you do not make people angry.
You speak of biosecurity. We can talk about bioterrorism in terms of invasive species as well, and I worry about the live trade thing. If you ban live trade fish, certain communities might think they can introduce their own populations. The Chinese mitten crab, which invaded the bay area some 30 or 40 years ago—no, longer, in the 1930s—was probably introduced as a food source for people. So if you block something, they might want to introduce it themselves to start their own populations. It can be very delicate and it requires foresight and thinking ahead.