Welcome to the team, Ty! 

We’re excited to welcome UW-La Crosse sophomore Ty Tretter to the River Alliance team as our 2021 Aquatic Invasive Species (AIS) Intern! Ty is pursing his undergrad degree in geography with an emphasis in environmental science and will be teaming up with Ellen Voss (our AIS Program Director) to tackle AIS issues on the Mississippi River and in the greater La Crosse area this summer. Ty has always had a love for the outdoors and is excited to use his passion and communication skills to spread the word about AIS prevention in the Driftless Area. 

Ty’s primary focus will be conducting Clean Boats Clean Waters watercraft inspections at boat landings to educate boaters on how and where AIS are most likely to hitch a ride and highlight important prevention steps. His additional duties will be helping out with our other AIS prevention campaigns, including Landing Blitz, Drain Campaign, the Bait Dealer Initiative, Project Riverine Early Detectors (RED) and Snapshot Day. Ty will also help Ellen with AIS monitoring and control efforts and help educate tournament anglers about the threats of AIS at major fishing tournaments on the Mississippi River. 

It will be a busy summer, and we’re excited to get started! 

From Ty:

“I am from Wausau, WI, and grew up spending much of my time on the water. I have learned to care for it and want to preserve our waterways the best I can. I am very excited for this internship and can’t wait to help spread the message about the importance of preventing the spread of aquatic invasive species in our water systems and the negative effects they can have. In the future, I would like to get a job working for the Department of Natural Resources. My reason for pursing this internship is because I care for our land, and I spend a lot of my free time fishing and duck hunting. I want to make sure the land we live on and hunt on is taken care of, and I think the best way I can do that is by going into this field and trying to uphold the laws of conservation.”