I am all for stopping the spread of ANS, but are these dogs only going to used during the tournament days? Very high probability all tournament boats will have been in the water all week leading up to the tournament. Seems like a warm fuzzy story to me. Maybe the goal is to try and bring more awareness instead of actually stopping the spread during this tournament.
"The K-9s and handlers will inspect each boat for the invasive species during angler registration and launching."
You're spot on. If they actually found anything during this exercise it would simply confirm an infected watercraft had already been in the lake. I'm assuming they'll just be sniffing around the underside of the boat and trailer, but it would be really funny if they're thinking guys are going to welcome a dog into a $100k boat to sniff the livewell. If the NDGF was even remotely serious about protecting our waters we would already have mandatory inspections at state lines and significantly increased non-resident license fees to pay for it.
"The corps will host a mussel K-9 demonstration open to the public July 14 at 10 a.m. at Ft. Stevenson State Park south of Garrison."
So are they going to let an interested third party plant some ANuS to show these dogs actually find them? Will be interested to hear from anglers about dog behavior and false alerts. But just like roadside K-9 use I'm sure there are never any questionable tactics or false alerts...
