·
William Mahler earned his bachelor’s degree in business administration from Southern Methodist University in Dallas, Texas. He spent more than 30 years with Baird, the Milwaukee-based wealth management firm, chairing the equity capital markets and asset management departments. A fishing and hunting aficionado, William Mahler is deeply committed to responsible environmental stewardship and serves as president of the Crab Lake Conservation Foundation.
Occupying about 950 acres near Presque Isle, Wisconsin, Crab Lake is one of hundreds of glacier-formed lakes in the area. It hosts several species of fish, including muskellunge, walleye, largemouth and smallmouth bass, and northern pike, as well as panfish. Several pairs of loons and bald eagles also call the lake home.
The Crab Lake Conservation Foundation was formed to preserve the lake’s natural beauty and prevent invasive species. Its current focus is the eradication of the Yellow Flag Iris (YFI), a plant that is native to Eurasia and that likely found its way to Crab Lake via decorative wetland planting and erosion control efforts made before the plant’s invasive nature was discovered. The YFI crowds out native plants, traps sediment, and contributes to the degradation of the native fish habitat as well as the nesting sites of the local loon families.
The YFI spreads through a network of underground rhizomes, and new plants also sprout from seed. They’re most easily identified by their bright yellow flowers, which only appear early summer. Once the flowers are gone, the plant closely resembles the blue iris, a native, non-invasive species at Crab Lake, which makes abatement more difficult. Eliminating the YFI is hard work, which involves digging up all the roots and disposing of them, preferably by burning. Other methods of abatement include aggressively cutting the plant back, disposing of the seed pods, and treating plants with approved herbicides.
A September 2020 report detailed how YFI had infested about a third of the lake’s shoreline and documented the foundation’s ongoing efforts to eliminate those plants. More information about the Foundation’s work is available online at CrabLakeConservationFoundation.org.
