Alewife Photo: Shawn Good.
We received interesting suggestions for our challenge to create lyrics for the fifth day of Wisconsin Sea Grant’ 12 days of aquatic nuisance species Christmas.
We’re not exactly sure any families will be adopting this song as a new Christmas tradition.
But just in case, we didn’t want to leave you hanging with Christmas looming.
Among the suggestions for replacement lyrics for five golden rings:
- $5 million in damages. Not bad, but perhaps a little light on that damage estimate.
- Five Great Lakes at risk. We like the link to the five lakes, but that extra syllable throws off the rhythm.
- Five more studieees. This nicely mimics the original carol. Our guess is it was contributed by this guy.
- 5 algae bloooooooooms. Nice! Yet it doesn’t fully capture all consequences of aquatic nuisance species.
- Phy — to — plank — ton. Excellent play on words here. We’d like to see some elaboration explaining the link and again, perhaps too limiting.
We’re not picking winners, but we didn’t want to leave you hanging in case you wanted to celebrate the season with this unique carol.
Here’s how Wisconsin Sea Grant’s aquatic invasive species outreach specialist Tim Campbell wrote that verse and the accompanying commentary:
FIVE BOAT WASH STATIONS!— I wish we had five boat wash stations in Wisconsin! Actually, I prefer the term “decontamination station,” but since it had too many syllables I took some artistic license and used boat wash station instead. Boat washing can include any steps that clean a boat, but watercraft decontamination steps include AIS removal actions that go beyond draining water and removing vegetation. Often times these steps involve the use of pressure washing equipment. Wisconsin is currently evaluating watercraft decontamination options to determine what decontamination activities make sense in the state. Check out the western United States to see where decontamination activities are widely used. Decontamination stations might not always be necessary, especially if you can take part in the third day’s gifts.
Forgot the third day? Here’s the rest of the song.