Poachers Snared by ‘Robo-Deer’

Deer hunting season is coming to an end across the region. But some people keep shooting deer despite the laws telling them not to. As the Great Lakes Radio Consortium’s Erin Syth reports, these poachers might want to pay close attention to what they’re shooting at:

Transcript

Deer hunting season is coming to an end across the region, but some
people keep shooting deer despite the laws telling them not to. As the
Great Lakes Radio Consortium’s Erin Syth reports, these poachers might
want to pay close attention to what they’re shooting at:


Wildlife officials throughout the region are using robotic deer to catch
poachers. The deer’s head and tail move by remote control. When a
hunter attempts to shoot the deer, wildlife officials move in.


Robo-deer are made from polyurethane foam and real hide. The latest
version is known as the “Stomper.” It retails for 17-hundred dollars, and
comes standard with a stomping front leg.


Brian Wolslegel is owner of Custom Robotic Wildlife, Incorporated. He
says these deer definitely work.


“Some guy was telling me about a guy that shot a decoy. They took his
gun, fined him – I think it was $2,000 and moved their operation a mile down
the road, and two hours later the same guy came back and shot at it again with
a different gun.”


Conservation officials in Wisconsin report that one robo-deer can rack up
to 30-thousand dollars in collected fines for the state.


For the GLRC, I’m Erin Syth.

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Holiday Spending to Take a Hit?

A new survey finds that many people say they’ll cut down on holiday shopping this year because of high-energy costs. But even the researchers who conducted the survey are skeptical that will actually happen. The Great Lakes Radio Consortium’s Tracy Samilton reports:

Transcript

A new survey finds that many people say they’ll cut down on holiday
shopping this year because of high-energy costs, but even the researchers
who conducted the survey are skeptical that will actually happen. The
Great Lakes Radio Consortium’s Tracy Samilton reports:


Consumers have told the Credit Union National Association for the past
six years that they planned to spend about the same or less during the
holiday season than they did the year before, but the association’s Chief
Economist Bill Hampel says spending has actually gone up each year.


“We typically go into holiday spending season saying I’m not going to do
what I did last year I’m going to restrain myself and then by end of
December we have this post holiday spending hangover saying whoops
we, our bills have run up we’ve spent more than we planned to.”


Hampel says this year, many people say high gas prices and heating bills
will curb their holiday spending. Still, Hampel says the economy would
benefit more if people spend what they can afford on gifts and cut down
on energy use. He says what we spend on presents goes into the
domestic economy, while energy spending typically goes to foreign
suppliers.


For the GLRC, I’m Tracy Samilton.

Powering a Town With Manure

Large-scale livestock farms struggle with ways to dispose of their animal waste. Now, efforts are under way to make an Indiana town the first in the nation to get its power entirely from hog manure, but as the Great Lakes Radio Consortium’s Chris Lehman reports, this venture has a long way to go before it becomes a reality:

Transcript

Large scale livestock farms struggle with ways to dispose of their
animal waste. Now, efforts are under way to make an Indiana town the first
in the nation to get its power entirely from hog manure, but as the Great
Lakes Radio Consortium’s Chris Lehman reports, this venture has a long way
to go before it becomes a reality:


Indiana Agriculture Department officials have unofficially renamed the
village of Reynolds as Bio-Town USA. They hope to supply the town’s power
needs with energy produced from animal waste. The technology to convert the
so-called biomass into usable power is in its infancy.


Agriculture Department spokeswoman, Deb Abbott, admits the project is venturing
into some uncharted territory.


“We don’t have all the answers. We’re gonna look for the answers and we
don’t have an exact time frame.”


Abbott says Reynolds was chosen because it’s a typical mid-west small town.
It also has easy access to manure. The state estimates more than
150-thousand hogs are within a 15-mile radius of the town.


For the GLRC, I’m Chris Lehman.

Related Links

Governors to Sign Annex Document

Seven years ago a Canadian company applied for a permit to export Great Lakes water to Asia. That plan was scrapped after a public outcry. And officials realized they needed to update the standards on Great Lakes water diversions. Now, the eight Great Lakes governors are expected to sign off on the new water diversion standards. The Great Lakes Radio Consortium’s Christina Shockley reports:

Transcript

Seven years ago a Canadian company applied for a permit to export Great
Lakes water to Asia. That plan was scrapped after a public outcry, and
officials realized they needed to update the standards on Great Lakes water
diversions. Now, the eight Great Lakes governors are expected to sign off on
the new water diversion standards. The Great Lakes Radio Consortium’s
Christina Shockley reports:


The so-called “Annex 2001” document has been years in the making. Its main goal
is to protect the Great Lakes from thirsty communities outside the Great Lakes basin.


Todd Ambs is a water expert. He’s working on the Annex on behalf of Wisconsin
Governor Jim Doyle.


“This is not just about diverting water out of the basin. It’s also about
how we manage consumptive use of water within the Great Lakes basin,
obviously the most significant fresh water resource in North America.”


Ambs says the document will require states to keep better track of where
water within the basin is going, and who’s using it.


Under the latest draft, some communities that sit outside the basin can
request Great Lakes water, but those communities would need to return used water back
to the basin, and any request would need approval from all eight Great Lakes governors.


The governors are expected to sign the document at a meeting in Milwaukee on
December 13th.


For the GLRC, I’m Christina Shockley.


If all eight Great Lakes governors sign the ‘Annex 2001’ document, it would
still need to be ok-ed by each state’s legislature, and Congress before going into
effect.

Related Links

Ten Threats: The American Eel

  • Researchers measuring an American Eel. (Courtesy of United States Department of Agriculture)

Pollution and invasive species are killing off or crowding out native plants and animals,
but for some species, it’s not just one problem, but many problems that are hurting them.
Few species illustrate the dangers of the multiple threats to the Great Lakes as the American
eel. Only fifty years ago, the snake-like fish accounted for half of the biomass in Lake
Ontario. Today, it has all but disappeared. David Sommerstein has that story:

Transcript

In our next report in the series Ten Threats to the Great Lakes we hear about native
species that are in trouble. Our guide in the series is Lester Graham. He says some fish
and organisms are disappearing.


Pollution and invasive species are killing off or crowding out native plants and animals,
but for some species, it’s not just one problem, but many problems that are hurting them.
Few species illustrate the dangers of the multiple threats to the Great Lakes as the American
eel. Only fifty years ago, the snake-like fish accounted for half of the biomass in Lake
Ontario. Today, it has all but disappeared. David Sommerstein has that story:


Before you say, who cares about a slimy critter like an eel, eels are amazing. They spawn
in the Sargasso Sea, the Bermuda Triangle, but no one’s ever caught them in the act.


After they’re born, they’re like tiny glassy leaves. They float thousands of miles north
and west on ocean currents. Then, they wiggle up the St. Lawrence River and into the
Great Lakes. They live up to 20 years in fresh water before they start the long journey to
the Sargasso to spawn.


The problem is their offspring are not coming back. People are worried about the eel, and
those who relied on it for a living feel like they’re disappearing too.


(Sound of waves)


Just ask fisherman John Rorabeck. He grew up here by the lighthouse on Point Traverse,
a peninsula that juts out into northeastern Lake Ontario.


Rorabeck’s been fishing these waters for more than 30 years. Eels were his prime catch.
He points past the lighthouse.


“I remember when I started fishing there were nights on that south shore, the most fish
that would be eels at certain times and there was literally tons of them on that south
shore. Now, you could go back there and you’ll find nothing.”


Rorabeck stopped fishing eels several years ago because it just wasn’t worth it. Now he
dedicates his fishing time to science. He catches specimens for leading eel expert John
Casselman, who examines them in his lab.


“It is truly a crisis. A crisis of concern.”


Casselman’s a scientist at Queens University in Kingston, Ontario. In 1980, at a point on
the St. Lawrence River in mid-summer, he counted more than 25,000 eels a day. Now
there are as few as 20 a day.


Casselman ticks off a list of causes. It sounds like a who’s who of environmental threats
to the Great Lakes – over fishing, dammed up rivers, erosion, pollution, invasive species,
climate change. If scientists could sift out how all the factors relate, they could take a big
step in better understanding the Great Lakes delicate ecosystem.


The problem is, Casselman says, there’s no time to wait. In 2003, eel experts from 18
countries made an unusual statement. In what they called the Quebec Declaration of
Concern, they urged more action, not more science.


“I’m a research scientist, and of course I love data. At this point, you don’t want me.
Don’t ask me to explain what’s going on here because by the time I get it figured out, it
may be too late.”


People are starting to do something about it, Casselman says. Several U.S. agencies are
considering giving the eel “rare and endangered” status. More money is going toward
research for fish ladders over dams.


Marc Gaden is spokesman for the Great Lakes Fishery Commission.


“We’re committing ourselves, our resources to working to make the recovery of the
species a reality.”


The province of Ontario has closed the eel fishery in its waters for the foreseeable future.


(Sound up at beach)


Fisherman John Rorabeck supports that plan. He stares out across the waters he’s
trawled for decades. He says he’s behind anything to bring the eel back for future
generations.


“And hopefully we can, but I don’t expect to see it in my time. When I…[crying]…when I
think of all the times that we’ve had out in the lake and my forefathers and see what’s
happening here, it breaks you down.”


Rorabeck says when he thinks of the eel nearing extinction, he feels like he and his way
of life are becoming extinct too.


For the GLRC, I’m David Sommerstein.

Related Links

Ten Threats: Coaster Brook Trout

  • A close up look at a Coaster Brook trout. (Courtesy of the Wisconsin Department of Natural Resources)

A lot of native fish have been hurt by pollution, invasive species and changes we’ve
made on the lake, but one fish stands out. For anglers, the Coaster Brook trout might have
been the greatest Great Lakes fish. It was abundant, fun to catch and lived in the cleanest
water, but throughout the 20th century, its populations declined just as the health of the
lakes did. Now, slowly, a diverse group of people is trying to save the fish in an effort
that could improve the Great Lakes too. The Great Lakes Radio Consortium’s Chris
McCarus reports:

Transcript

We’re continuing our look at Ten Threats to the Great Lakes. Lester Graham is the
series guide. He says one of the threats is a disappearing species.


A lot of native fish have been hurt by pollution, invasive species and changes we’ve
made on the lake, but one fish stands out. For anglers, the coaster brook trout might have
been the greatest Great Lakes fish. It was abundant, fun to catch and lived in the cleanest
water, but throughout the 20th century, its populations declined just as the health of the
lakes did. Now, slowly, a diverse group of people is trying to save the fish in an effort
that could improve the Great Lakes too. The Great Lakes Radio Consortium’s Chris
McCarus reports:


(Sound of river waterfall)


Hundreds of feet above Lake Superior, the Salmon Trout River flows fast and falls hard
onto a rocky bottom below. Much of the river lies within a large tract of private woods
and hills. It’s been untouched for about a century.


Peter Dykema and his family are part owners of the land. He speaks with affection about
fishing for coaster brook trout here as a kid.


“Well as you can tell it’s a beautiful river and there’s nothing a 14 year old boy would
rather do than get his feet cold and wet and throw flies into trees. So, I did it every
chance I had.”


Dykema is nostalgic because those days are long gone for almost everybody. He’s part
of a group of activists trying to restore the coaster brook population.


Coaster brook trout have sparkling colors. They’re even more colorful than Rainbow
trout, and they grow a lot bigger. They can reach 2 feet and 4 pounds. These indigenous
fish used to live in 200 streams around Lake Superior. People came from all around the
nation to fish for them. Presidents Roosevelt and McKinley came to Michigan to catch
them, and they were caught by the boatload.


Over fishing was one of the biggest reasons why they were nearly wiped out. Their
habitat was damaged from mining and road building. Silt filled in the rock bottom where
they like to lay their eggs. That also hurt the fish.


Logging damaged the coaster brook’s habitat. Scott Libants is a fish and wildlife
researcher at Michigan State University. He says loggers dammed up streams to flood
them. Then they packed them with logs. When they had enough, they broke the streams
back open so the logs would float down to the lake to be sold.


“You knock the dam out and send all the trees down. You scour the watershed. It’s like
flushing a toilet.”


The fish haven’t recovered since. They just couldn’t take the abuse.


The Salmon Trout River still has them because the private landowners banned fishing
and didn’t alter the land. It’s one of only a handful of streams in the U.S. and Canada
that still has the coaster brook trout.


(Sound of people walking in the woods)


Downstream on the way to Lake Superior, Peter Dykema and state environmental
officials walk to the spot where they have equipment that counts the numbers of coaster
brooks going up river to lay their eggs. Dykema says they counted more than 80 fish last
season. The population seems to be slowly increasing here, but the stream still isn’t
perfect. There’s too much sand and not enough gravel for laying eggs.


“Most of the sediment problem we are looking at is a creature of the last 40 or 50 years.
So if we can stop the input, I’m hoping that the river will be able to cleanse itself.


The sediment Dykema is talking about comes from the points where roads cross the river.
People and cars jar soil loose and it fills up the riverbed. This is the fish’s current
challenge. Coaster brook trout are sensitive and susceptible to pollution. Conservation
officials use brook trout as indicators of high water quality. Coaster brooks will die if
they don’t have nearly perfect conditions.


(Sound of Lake superior waves lapping on rocks.)


Few anglers alive today have seen coaster brook trout, but if they could this would be the
place. It’s where the Salmon Trout River meets Lake Superior. For a diverse group of
conservationists, this place symbolizes what people did to the land and water of the
region.


Laura Hewitt is visiting from Trout Unlimited in Wisconsin.


“This is a fish that presidents came to fish for, that Hemingway wrote about. It’s
something that captures the imagination, it touches the soul. It’s a fish that we care
very much about and think it can be sort of a rallying point for action in the basin.”


Those working to preserve the last few hundred coaster brook trout say we should feel
lucky that they’re not all gone. They say now’s the time to keep what’s left, build it up,
and use the eggs from this small population to start the fish in other streams of Lake
Superior. Then perhaps within our lifetime, our children can enjoy the fish that our great
grandfathers did, and in doing that, they’ll know the water’s clean.


For the GLRC, I’m Chris McCarus.

Related Links

Ten Threats: Break in the Food Chain?

  • Diporeia are disappearing from Lakes Michigan, Huron, Erie, and Ontario. The actual size of a diporeia is ½ an inch. (Courtesy of the EPA)

Some of the life in the Great Lakes has been hit hard by industry and trade. Pollution and
invasive species have hurt some of the native plants and animals important to the food
chain. While popular game fish might be the first to come to mind, it’s a little organism
at the bottom of the food chain that has biologists and fishing experts most concerned.
The Great Lakes Radio Consortium’s Lester Graham reports:

Transcript

In a survey, experts said one of the Ten Threats to the Great Lakes is a disappearing
species. Some native fish populations and organisms are declining. Our guide through
the Ten Threats series is Lester Graham.


Some of the life in the Great Lakes has been hit hard by industry and trade. Pollution and
invasive species have hurt some of the native plants and animals important to the food
chain. While popular game fish might be the first to come to mind, it’s a little organism
at the bottom of the food chain that has biologists and fishing experts most concerned.
The Great Lakes Radio Consortium’s Lester Graham reports:


(Sound of swinging doors)


Jack Donlan is taking me behind the fish counter at Donlan’s Fish House. In the
backroom he’s scaling and filleting some whitefish.


“Of the fishes caught in the Great Lakes, whitefish is one of the big volume fishes. Lake
perch, walleye bring more money per pound, but I would think from a tonnage-wise,
whitefish, it’s an extremely popular fish.”


This is a popular place to get Great Lakes fish, but Donlan’s suppliers, the commercial
fishers, are worried about the catch. At some places in the Great Lakes whitefish aren’t
doing too well.


(Sound of Lake Guardian motors)


Tom Nalepa is trying to figure out why whitefish are struggling. He’s onboard the U.S.
Environmental Protection Agency research ship, the Lake Guardian. Nalepa is a
biologist with the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration’s Great Lakes
Environmental Research Lab. He’s been studying Lakes Michigan and Huron, and on
this day he’s getting ready to study the bottom of Lake Erie.


He’s not studying whitefish. He’s actually looking for a tiny shrimp-like crustacean, only an
eighth to a quarter inch long, called diporeia. Eighty-percent of the whitefish diet is
made up of diporeia.


“And what we’re seeing is a dramatic drop in populations, and not only drops, but there are
large areas now in all the lakes, except Lake Superior, that no longer have diporeia. This
is real concern because diporeia is a very important fish food.”


Researchers used to find eight to 10-thousand diporeia or more in a square meter of sediment just
a few years ago. Now, there are only a dozen or so, or none at all. Diporeia is one of the
mainstays of the bottom of the food chain, and Nalepa says whitefish aren’t the only ones
that eat the tiny critters in the sediment at the bottom of the lakes.


“Just about every type of species found in the Great Lakes will feed on diporeia at some
stage in its life-cycle. Diporeia is high in calories and has a high-energy content. It’s a
very good food, nutritious food source for fish.”


Without it, fish are not getting enough to eat. Marc Gaden is with the Great Lakes
Fishery Commission. He says when diporeia disappears, commercial fishers can’t help
but notice.


“Right now we’re seeing skinnier whitefish. Whitefish that are somewhat emaciated in
some areas because they just don’t have as much of these low-end of the food web organisms
to eat, and we think it’s related to an invasive species that came in.”


That invasive species is the zebra mussel, and more recently another invader that was
likely carried to the lakes in the ballasts of ocean-going cargo ships, the quagga mussels.


Back on the Lake Guardian, Tom Nalepa says he’s seen the connection again and again.


“There’s no question that it’s related to zebra mussels and quagga mussels. In every area
that we’ve studied, regardless of the lake area, declines were happening a couple of years
after the quagga mussel or zebra mussel were first found, but that connection remains
elusive.”


Biologists thought the invasive mussels might have been filtering out all of the food the
diporeia eat, but when they find diporeia, they don’t appear to be starving. They appear
healthy. Now, scientists are wondering if there’s some kind of disease or toxin spread
by the mussels that’s wiping out the diporeia.


Even if researchers learn why the diporeia are disappearing, there might be nothing that
can be done to help. Some scientists worry that the decline of diporeia and other
organisms at the base of the food chain might ultimately lead to a massive collapse of fish
stocks in the Great Lakes.


For the GLRC, this is Lester Graham.

Related Links

Illuminating How Plants Use Light

Scientists say changes for agriculture could be in store,
now that they’ve come up with a detailed map of how plants react to light. The Great Lakes Radio Consortium’s Chuck Quirmbach
reports:

Transcript

Scientists say changes for agriculture could be in store, now that they’ve come up with a detailed
map of how plants react to light. The Great Lakes Radio Consortium’s Chuck Quirmbach reports:


Researchers have been trying for decades to get extensive details on how plants use light to
develop. Scientists at the University of Wisconsin-Madison have come up with a blueprint of
how light tells a plant to germinate, grow and flower.


Plant geneticist Richard Vierstra says corn could be dramatically changed if light-sensitive
molecules called phytocromes can be re-engineered and introduced.


“If we could minimize how phytocromes work …in a cornfield, we could minimize them trying to
compete with each other for light, and so that they would hopefully expend more energy making seeds
rather than making stalks and taller plants which eventually fall over.”


Vierstra says more testing is needed before the photochemical properties of the plant molecules
can be changed. But he says the new map will tell scientists exactly what to do. The research
was published in a recent issue of the journal Nature.


For the GLRC, I’m Chuck Quirmbach.

Salmon Stocking Cuts to Hurt Native Fish?

Several state agencies in the region will
reduce the amount of salmon stocked in Lakes Huron and Michigan next year. The change is designed to help the alewife population recover. Alewives are the salmon’s main food source, but as the Great Lakes Radio Consortium’s Peter Payette reports, some biologists think helping the alewife will hurt native fish:

Transcript

Several state agencies in the region (IL, IN, MI, WI) will reduce the amount
of salmon stocked in Lakes Huron and Michigan next year. The change is
designed to help the alewife population recover. Alewives are the salmon’s
main food source, but as the Great Lakes Radio Consortium’s Peter Payette
reports some biologists think helping the alewife will hurt native fish:


The total number of salmon stocked in the two lakes will be cut by more than
a third next year. The state agencies that manage the stocking programs say
there was widespread support for the decisions, but one dissenting voice was
the Chippewa Ottawa Resource Authority, or CORA.


CORA supports recovery of native fish species like the Lake trout. Mark
Ebener is a fishery Biologist with CORA. He says you can’t protect
alewives and expect lake trout to do well.


“So you have to commit to one or the other. Instead of what the states are
going to do, and what Michigan is going to do, it’s going to protect alewife
by reducing stocking so they can have healthier salmon, but at the same time
it’s going to say, ‘Well tribes we still want you to support Lake trout
rehabilitation and we still support it and think it’s still feasible.'”


Female lake trout that have a diet heavy in alewives can develop a nutrient
deficiency. It causes most of their young to die soon after birth.


For the GLRC, I’m Peter Payette.

Related Links

Investigation Uncovers Bombing Site

An investigation has found that the Air Force used the
Apostle Islands and Lake Superior for bombing practice in the early 1970’s. The Great Lakes Radio Consortium’s Mike Simonson has the story:

Transcript

An investigation has found that the Air Force used the Apostle Islands and Lake
Superior for bombing practice in the early 1970’s. The Great Lakes Radio
Consortium’s Mike Simonson has the story:


Jim Erickson was hoping to pull in a net full of fish one afternoon thirty years
ago, but his catch had a surprise. The Bayfield, Wisconsin fisherman had
snagged a missile.


“It was about four feet long and had some fins on it. They used to run those runs
outside of Outer Island there during the summer. Target practice, I guess.”


Erickson strapped the missile to the top of his fishing boat and tooled back to
Bayfield, where he handed it over to the Coast Guard. Erickson says he’s not
sure if the missile was a dummy or had live ammo. That’s one missile of three he
knows of that local fisherman pulled in around the Apostle Islands.


An investigation by the nearby Red Cliff tribe uncovered Erickson’s story. The
U.S. Department of Defense paid for that investigation. It is uncovering evidence
of different uses by the military of Lake Superior, including dumping tons of
ammunition after World War II.


For the GLRC, I’m Mike Simonson.