By Ali Longwell, Summit Daily
After 2025 saw a flurry of zebra mussel detections in the Colorado River system, Colorado Parks and Wildlife’s weekly sampling this summer has led to zero new discoveries of the invasive species.
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This does not mean, however, that zebra mussels — notorious for their prolific reproduction and destruction of ecosystems and infrastructure — are gone from the basin or that the battle to curb their spread is over.
When zebra mussels establish a presence in a body of water, they multiply quickly. A single zebra mussel can produce up to 30,000 veligers — their microscopic, free-floating larvae — in one spawning event and up to one million in a year. As they root and attach to hard surfaces — like docks, rocks and pipes — and their density increases, they can cause significant damage and clogging to water infrastructure.
The species was initially detected in Colorado in 2022 and in the Colorado River in 2024. Increased sampling and inspections in 2025 led to numerous detections across the Western Slope.
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Read more at summitdaily.com.
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