Two filmmakers were making a documentary about the invasive quagga mussel in Lake Huron when they stumbled upon the wreck of a steamship called Africa, which went missing in 1895.
Two filmmakers making a documentary about the invasive quagga mussels, a pest with no natural predator in the Great Lakes, found something much larger than the fingertip-sized mollusk. They discovered the shipwreck of the Africa, a cargo ship that hadn't been seen for 128 years.LOST CHAPTERS OF 125-YEAR SHIPWRECK FOUND IN LAKE HURON REVEAL AMERICA'S HISTORY OF TRADEfound themselves on a boat tossed by Lake Huron's waves.
"Just like when the Africa went down in 1895 early season storms, it was getting rough," Drebert said. "When we went out to check it out, it was supposed to be nice and calm, but of course, thekept coming up. We actually brought some friends with us. We thought we were just going to see a pile of rocks, so why not? But it got pretty rough, and they were feeling a little seasick. So we had to call it a day.
"So we see lots of the mussels, and that's what we normally see down there," Melnick told FOX Weather. "But then we started to see this shadow in the distance, and we're like, ‘What? What is that?’""And so we got closer and closer, and the ship just sort of appeared out of the mists of time, and it was really pretty incredible," he continued.
Researchers said the species probably arrived via oceangoing ships in ballast tanks – water-filled tanks that stabilize a ship. Once in port, a ship releases the water. The creatures alter the food web by filtering the water and removing plankton, leaving little else for native wildlife to eat, according to the"With no controls, they spread rapidly, foul boats and equipment, clog water intake, and increase costs to hydropower operations and municipal water utilities," stated a USDA report. "Even dead mussels can be a nuisance, littering beaches with shells.
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