Exotic Species

Ten years ago I was working in Pennsylvania at a U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service laboratory working on lake trout and Atlantic salmon restoration projects. While I was there I was aware that we had a laboratory in Florida that worked on exotic species but was really sure what that meant. I had my own work to do so I went on about my business. And then while on a visit to Florida to learn about the sturgeon restoration going on here, I learned a little more about exotics. About 6 months after the visit to Gainesville I applied for and accepted a job at the Gainesville laboratory and now exotics are all I do. I first started by documenting occurrences of exotics, that was, and still is the kind of information the government wants to compile. The lab had started to compile a list of exotic fishes in the US before I got there. When I arrived I began to keep track of where the zebra mussel was spreading. Now we are trying to compile documentation of any aquatic organism that is outside of its historic natural range. Originally our laboratory was established to test whether exotics could serve good uses such as biocontrol of aquatic weeds and algae with tilapia. In some cases research has unfortunately been responsible for a few introductions.