Tag: trout

Throwing the Big Fish Back

  • Fishing laws in Canada and US states often protect small fish and are less restrictive with big ones. (Photo courtesy of the US Fish and Wildlife Service)

People who love to fish spend plenty of money on gear, license fees and even gas for their boats. It’s enough to make anglers think, maybe they’re entitled to keeping the biggest fish for trophies or the frying pan, right? Shawn Allee met a researcher who wants you to throw back your biggest catch:

Transcript

People who love to fish spend plenty of money on gear, license fees and even gas for their boats. It’s enough to make anglers think, maybe they’re entitled to keeping the biggest fish for trophies or the frying pan, right? Shawn Allee met a researcher who wants you to throw back your biggest catch:

This is the guy who wants to change how a lot of people fish.

“My name is Paul Venturelli and I study fisheries biology at the University of Toronto.”

Venturelli’s disturbed by how many fish species are on the brink of collapse – either in oceans or in fresh water.

He hopes to grow fish stocks – with this fishing advice.

Toss the big ones back.

And what’s he got to back that up?

“I’ve got about ten pages of notes here. Nah, I’m kidding. I’m kidding.”

Actually, he says the idea is pretty simple.

“A ton of big, old fish will produce more new fish than a ton of smaller, younger fish. And this is because the bigger, older fish tend to produce offspring that have a higher chance of survival.”

Venturelli studies mostly ocean-species, but he says the principal should apply to North American freshwater fish like pike and walleye, too.

But Venturelli’s got a problem spreading this idea around.

Fishing laws in Canada and a lot of US states often protect small fish and are less restrictive with big ones.

I asked one of the head guys in Illinois fisheries, Joe Ferencak, why that is.

“Essentially what you’re doing with that minimum size limit is protecting one or two year classes of reproductive age fish so they can successfully spawn or reproduce.”

Ferencak says, fisheries science has stood behind the ‘protect the small fish’ theory for decades – with some exceptions.

He says to change laws, Venturelli would need to do more studies.

Plus, Ferencak says no state would want to completely keep people from big fish – that’s just not much fun.

“We want to maintain and enhance these fisheries for the benefit of the fishing public, the angler. And it’s kind of counter-intuitive to not allow them to take these larger fish.”

Well, I figure it wouldn’t be fair to talk about big fish without talking to outdoorsmen, so I spent some time in Griffith, Indiana.

It’s about ten miles from Lake Michigan.

Fishing and hunting outlets are all around – and there’s this place.

Allee: “So what’s the establishment.”

Leap: “American Natural Resources.”

Edward Leap Senior runs American Natural Resources – it’s a taxidermy shop – with stuffed deer, fox, and fish filling every nook and cranny.

I figure Leap would rush to the defense of catching big fish, but, you know what? He doesn’t bite.

Allee: “If you get a whole bunch of fish in your boat, I mean, you want to show off the big one. Most people do, right?”

Leap: “Yes and no, though. When you get talking about the conscientious outdoorsman, no, he’s not going to be thinking this way. He’s going to say, ‘I got this fifteen pound walleye, a super-trophy fish. It took a lot of years to grow this fish, I’m going to take a picture of it and I’m going to release it.'”

And, to prove the point, he reaches back and pulls a fish trophy off the shelf.

“For the trophy part of it, we’ll do a reproduction of it that you can’t tell from the real thing. And the fish now is out there spawning, and making eggs, and continuing its species.”

Leap says more and more fishermen are having him make fake fish – or, reproductions, as he calls them.

So, from his vantage, scientists like Paul Venturelli won’t have too much trouble with the advice to ‘throw back the big ones.’

Leap says you don’t have to keep fish you catch, and in his experience, smaller fish make better eating anyway.

For The Environment Report, I’m Shawn Allee.

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Trout Used as the ‘Canary’ in a Stream

  • Natural resources workers wade in the Vermillion River, 30 minutes south of Minneapolis. They're sending mild shocks through the water to capture trout and measure them. (Photo by Stephanie Hemphill)

Suburban growth typically degrades
the quality of rivers and lakes. But
developers are finding ways to protect
water quality even as they build housing
developments and malls. Stephanie Hemphill
reports on a stream in a major metropolitan
area that still has trophy-sized native
trout in it – and how people are working
together to protect the trout:

Transcript

Suburban growth typically degrades
the quality of rivers and lakes. But
developers are finding ways to protect
water quality even as they build housing
developments and malls. Stephanie Hemphill
reports on a stream in a major metropolitan
area that still has trophy-sized native
trout in it – and how people are working
together to protect the trout:

A half dozen people in waders stand nearly waist-deep in a bend of
the Vermillion River. They’re getting ready to send electric shocks
through the water.

(sound of gas motor starting)

They’re looking for trout.

They’re stunning the fish so they can catch them in nets. When they
have about ten fish of all sizes in their bucket, they pull their boat to
the side to count and measure them.

“You can see on the one he’s pulling out right now, it’s a male, it’s got
that big hook jaw on the front. 532. These are millimeters; that’s
about 21 inches. ”

Brian Nerbonne is a trout habitat specialist with the Minnesota
Department of Natural Resources, and today he’s a happy man. He’s
collecting a healthy batch of trout on this river just thirty minutes from
downtown Minneapolis. He figures the big ones they’re finding are
about six years old.

“Fish grow really fast in the Vermillion: you saw when we were
shocking there’s a lot of a other fish, suckers, creek chubs, and things
like that they can eat, they grow a lot faster eating those other fish
than if they were just eating bugs.”

Biologists regard trout as a kind of canary in the coal mine. These
trout are healthy, and that’s a sign that this river is healthy for all
kinds of animals, including people.

As you walk along the stream, you can see schools and houses and
roads literally a stone’s throw from the river. Typically, development
like this threatens the trout, because it produces warm, dirty storm
water runoff.

Twenty years ago, a local sportsmen’s group asked the state to
designate parts of the Vermillion River as a trout stream. That would
mean local governments would have to do more to protect the water
quality, and not all of them were happy with the idea.

State planner Michele Hanson had the task of coaxing local officials
to get on board.

She did that by doing what the DNR is doing today – shocking the
river to show local officials there was something there worth
protecting.

“Once everyone believed us that it’s trout stream, then we went out
and met with every community along the river, of the section that we
were going to designate as trout stream, to tell them what it would
mean to them, what changes might happen.”

It would mean every town, every township and county that the river
flowed through would have to make some changes in the way they
developed.

Now, in some sections of the river, builders must leave a buffer to
protect the stream, as much as 150-feet wide.

Also, they need to avoid increasing the amount of runoff. Rainwater
that sheets off roads and driveways and rushes directly into the river
is too warm for the trout.

Builders are learning how to get the water to soak into the ground
instead. They can build narrower streets and shorter driveways.
They can build rain gardens and other landscaping that holds the
runoff long enough that it can soak in.

The state is also building structures in the river to provide better
hiding places and spawning grounds for the trout.

(sound of counting fish)

It’s all aimed at holding onto a rare treasure – a healthy trout stream in
a major metropolitan area.

For The Environment Report, I’m Stephanie Hemphill.

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Lamprey Infests Lake Champlain

  • Two sea lampreys attached to a large fish. This predatory parasite is wiping out freshwater salmon and trout in Lake Champlain. (Photo courtesy of U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service)

Government biologists working on Lake
Champlain, between New York and Vermont, say
they’re losing the fight against the sea
lamprey, a parasite that targets freshwater
salmon and trout. The lamprey population has
surged in recent years. Brian Mann reports
scientists say the best solution might be to
turn the fight over to federal biologists
who have had greater success fighting
lamprey on the Great Lakes:

Transcript

Government biologists working on Lake
Champlain, between New York and Vermont, say
they’re losing the fight against the sea
lamprey, a parasite that targets freshwater
salmon and trout. The lamprey population has
surged in recent years. Brian Mann reports
scientists say the best solution might be to
turn the fight over to federal biologists
who have had greater success fighting
lamprey on the Great Lakes:


On a gorgeous April morning, charter boat captain Richard
Greenough went fishing. He didn’t like what he found on his line:


“I went out this morning, I got one fish. Looked like it had been
sitting in front of a machine gun. It was skinny. It looked sick.
And that was a good one, because it’s alive.”


Lake Champlain’s freshwater salmon and trout are being wiped out by a
predator called the sea lamprey. The parasites are awful creatures – long and slimy
with circular suckers used to clamp onto the side of fish.


Back in the early 90s, New York and Vermont partnered with the US Fish
and Wildlife Service on an experimental project to kill lamprey, but
since 1998, the parasites have come roaring back. Speaking at a sea lamprey summit
in Burlington, Vermont, Captain Greenough says his customers regularly catch fish
that are half-eaten and scarred:


“It’s almost an embarrassment right now. Two years ago, I thought it
was bad with a 13-inch lake trout with three lampreys on it. Well, it’s
got so good we got a 12-inch with five on it last year.”


State biologists in Vermont and New York concede that the lamprey
response here simply isn’t working. Doug Stang is chief of fisheries
for New York’s Department of Environmental Conservation:


“You see in our current effort, even though substantial and
significant, just isn’t cutting it. We need to put forth more effort. Or
we need to pick up our toys so to speak and go home.”


Government biologists say abandoning an intensive lamprey program
would mean a complete crash of lake salmon and trout populations.
The fish are in danger of being wiped out by the lamprey. Biologists also say the parasites would likely begin feeding on other
species. One possible solution, Stang says, is turning the lamprey battle over
to the federal government, modeling the effort here after a much larger
lamprey program on the Great Lakes:


“This would provide us with a more centralized approach and this would provide us with a more a coordination for funding
and sea lamprey control efforts.”


The sea lamprey program on the Great Lakes isn’t a complete success.
The program is struggling with proposed funding cuts… and some
critics say the lamprey population in the Great Lakes is still too high.


Despite those concerns, Dale Burkett says the feds are ready to do more on Lake Champlain.
He heads sea lamprey control operations for the Great Lakes Fishery
Commission and works for the US Fish and Wildlife Service:


“The expansion in dollar amount would be somewhere around $310,000 more than is
currently being spent by the collective. I think the Fish and Wildlife
Service has indicated that they are willing, if tasked with that
responsibility, to step up to the plate.”


Federal scientists say that new investment would help to save a $250 million sport fishery.
Even so, the Federal takeover would be controversial. The main weapon
in this fight is a kind of poison called TFM that’s used to kill sea
lamprey larva in rivers.


On the Great Lakes, the use of TFM has a long track record, dating back
to the 1950s, but in New York and Vermont the practice is still
controversial. Joanne Calvi is with a group called the Poultney River
Committee. She says the toxins could affect other native species, including
several varieties of freshwater mussels that are considered endangered or threatened by state biologists:


“I’m opposed to chemical treatment with TFM to control native sea
lamprey in the Poultney River. I feel it should be prohibited.”


A new wrinkle here is the growing scientific consensus that the lamprey are a native species
and might not be invasive at all. Green groups say the parasite’s growing numbers reflect a larger problem with Lake Champlain’s eco-system.


Rose Paul is with the Vermont Chapter of the Nature Conservancy:


“We need to manage the lake’s species and habitats in a more holistic
way, that would help us identify root causes of problems.”


Scientists are experimenting with other methods of controlling lamprey including nest destruction, the release of
sterilized males, and trapping. But in the short term, government resdearchers say lampricide poison is
the only cost-efficient way to prevent the parasite from destroying Lake Champlain’s fishery.


For the Environment Report, I’m Brian Mann in Burlington.

Related Links

Invasive Die-Off Stirs Fishery Debate

  • A naturally reproduced wild lake trout fingerling. (Photo courtesy of MI DNR.)

The fisheries in the Great Lakes are seeing dramatic changes. In one lake, an invasive species that has become part of the food chain has collapsed. But some native fish are doing better because of that collapse. Lester Graham reports some fishery managers are debating what to do next:

Transcript

The fisheries in the Great Lakes are seeing dramatic changes. In one lake, an invasive species that has become part of the food chain has collapsed. But, some native fish are doing better because of that collapse. Lester Graham reports some fishery managers are debating what to do next:


When we started digging canals, connecting the lakes to the Atlantic Ocean, things changed a lot for the fish in the Great Lakes.


First, the sea lamprey got into the lakes through the Welland canal that bypasses Niagara Falls.


The lamprey is an eel-like parasite that nearly wiped out the big fish in the Great Lakes by attaching to them and sucking the life out of them.

Also slipping through the canals was a smaller fish, the alewife. Since the lamprey wiped out most of the predator fish in the lakes, the alewife population exploded. They out-competed native fish for food. It got so bad, that by the mid 1960s, if you weighed all the fish in Lake Michigan, more than 80% of the weight would have been alewives.


So, once wildlife managers got the sea lamprey under control, they had to figure out what they could do to get alewives under control. The fish biologists decided to introduce new predators, trout and salmon, to prey on the alewives. These fish were not native to the Great Lakes. Expensive nurseries were built by federal and state game agencies to keep supplying new trout and salmon every year to prey on alewives.


Forty years later, in Lake Huron, the alewife population collapsed, and in Lake Michigan alewives are declining rapidly. Mission accomplished, right?


Well, in that 40 years, a whole recreational fishing industry has grown up around fishing for those introduced trout and salmon. Some fishery managers now say we have to find a balance of the right amount of alewives to sustain the introduced trout and salmon fishery. So, recently states have cut their trout and salmon stocking programs to give alewives a chance to recover.


Tom Trudeau [who] operates a fish nursery for the state of Illinois says it would cause trouble to try to take the Great Lakes back to native fish only.


“We do have this industry that we have pressure to keep. You know, you’re putting a lot of people out of business if you get rid of it.”


And Trudeau says because of ecological damage, many of the smaller native fish on which big predators used to feed have been wiped out.


“So, I mean, of the six or seven species in that category, we only have one. And a couple of them are extinct. So, I mean, we could talk about going back to the ideal situation of pure native species, but we’ve disrupted the habitat so much.”


So, the argument goes, the invasive alewives are now needed. But something unexpected happened when the alewives disappeared from Lake Huron. The native fish, walleye, yellow perch, and lake trout started doing better.


Dave Fielder is a fisheries research biologist with the Michigan Department of Natural Resources.


“We’ve long known that adult alewives were a predator and a competitor on newly hatched perch and walleye fry. We just didn’t realize how substantial that effect was until finally the adult alewives were removed from the system and now we’re enjoying some greatly increased reproductive success. Walleye, particularly in Saginaw bay, are at some of the highest levels that we’ve seen in a long time.”


But, after 40 years, people are used to fishing for those introduced trout and salmon. And some fisheries managers are wondering what will happen to all those expensive nurseries that provide their jobs.


What happens to all of those charter boat fishing operations, fishing tourism, if the government were to stop stocking those trout and salmon? Would they switch to fishing for native fish? And, can the native fish even survive in the long-run since so many of the smaller native prey-fish are no longer around?


Dave Fielder says it’s hard to say.


“So, we’re kind of in the middle of a change – it’s really a paradigm shift in many ways – and that’s always scary because nobody really knows how we’re going to end up, but I prefer to be optimistic. I think there are a lot of reasons to be hopeful in regards to the benefits that we’re seeing for our native species.”


But some fisheries managers say the debate of whether to go all native or to try to find the right mix of native and non-native fish is not over. Since invasive species, pollution, and habitat destruction have changed the Great Lakes so much, wildlife managers think they’ll still have to keep stocking one kind of fish or another to keep the recreational fishing industry going. If that’s the case, does it matter whether it’s native fish, or the introduced fish that anglers have grown to like so much?


For the Environment Report, this is Lester Graham.

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Restoring Streams in the Heartland

  • Settlers dug ditches and straightened rivers to drain the fields they needed for planting. (photo by Mark Brush)

Today, we wrap up our series on pollution in the heartland.
To farm in the nation’s heartland, people first had to drain the water from the land. In a lot of places, that meant dredging rivers to get them to move along faster and carry water off the fields. But straight, fast rivers aren’t healthy rivers. And the rushing water carries pesticides and fertilizers off of fields and deposits them downstream. But in some places, farmers are starting to repair rivers. The GLRC’s Rebecca Williams has the final story in our week-long series:

Transcript

Today, we wrap up our series on pollution in the heartland. To farm in the nation’s
heartland, people first had to drain the water from the land. In a lot of places, that meant
dredging rivers to get them to move along faster and carry water off the fields. But
straight, fast rivers aren’t healthy rivers. And the rushing water carries pesticides and
fertilizers off of fields and deposits them downstream. But in some places, farmers are
starting to repair rivers. The GLRC’s Rebecca Williams has the final story in our week-long series:


From an airplane, the land below it looks like it was drawn in geometry class. Fields
of corn and soybeans look almost like perfect squares. Rivers seem as straight as a ruler’s
edge.


When rivers have their way, they’re unruly. They have lots of twists and bends, but people have straightened a lot of rivers and streams to make it easier to grow crops
and raise animals. European settlers forging their way West got stuck in huge swamps.
The mosquitoes were terrible. But the settlers’ chances of raising food in the swampland
were even worse.


“In order to reclaim that land, muckland, for raising vegetable crops, they had to drain it.”


Barb Cook owns a farm here in fertile southwest Michigan. Her grandfather farmed here
in the early 1900s, back when the rivers were being straightened.


(sound of river)


Cook’s standing on the bank of the Dowagiac River. Right now it’s as straight as a canal
and it’s moving fast. But it’s about to get some of its curves back.


Barb Cook says she was skeptical when she heard about the plan to coax the river back to
its original path.


“Well, they want to put the wiggles back. Well, why? Were they trying to hoodwink
anyone or were their objectives pure? And I got involved and felt they were really truly
trying to improve things.”


Cook’s now the vice president of the group. It calls itself MEANDRS. It’s made up of
farmers and biologists and fishermen. People who all have a stake in what happens to the
river.


They’re carving out one of the curves the river used to follow.


Jay Wesley is a biologist with the Department of Natural Resources. He says even
though this new meander isn’t connected to the river yet, little springs are bubbling up.


“We’ve actually even seen trout in here since this first part of the project’s been done.
They’ve come up through the culvert from the river and have found their way up here.
So it’s pretty cold, high quality water.”


That’s exciting news for fishermen. A river fed by cold groundwater can be a mecca for
trout. The pools and riffles sculpted into the new meander will give fish places to hide.


These small signs of hope are a pretty big deal. This project is a very long labor of
love 12 years in the making.


That’s because there are lots of hurdles. For one thing, meander restorations are
expensive. Half a million dollars at the low end.


There are piles of paperwork.


And some farmers worry that restoring meanders will flood their fields.


In this project, the MEANDRS group surveyed nearby farmers early on about their
concerns and included them in the planning process. Bill Westraight is the President of
MEANDRS. He’s also a farmer who owns land along the river.


“I think what I say holds more weight with farmers than if somebody had come down and
was mandating that they participate in some way.”


Westraight says they had some major critics in the beginning. But he says they’ve gotten
almost all the neighbors on board. He says it was crucial that they gave everyone a say.
They also commissioned feasibility studies to make sure upstream farmers wouldn’t be
flooded.


All these hurdles mean that projects like these aren’t very common.


Andrew Fahlund is with the nonprofit group American Rivers. He says big projects like
meander restorations almost always need government funding. And that funding’s been
cut dramatically over the past few years. Fahlund says those cuts are short-sighted
because healthier rivers can actually save money in the long run.


“One of the reasons you get such an economic benefit from river restoration is that you
reduce the costs of having to treat water, filter
that water and clean it up for human consumption.”


(river sound up under)


The MEANDRS group says there’s no way they can restore the entire river. But they
hope mending just this small section will help revive the river a bit.


The group points out that this type of restoration won’t work everywhere. They say in
many places, channelized rivers are still crucial for keeping fields drained.


Farmer Barb Cook says even now, she sees this project as an experiment. In a few
months, she’ll get to see whether all her hard work will pan out, when they’ll try to force
water from the straight channel into the new meander.


“As you look at the stream behind us, it’s quite a volume of water. Water has its own
way. Mother Nature has something to say about this too. She may say no.”


Cook says nothing ever runs smoothly. But she says they’ll just be flexible and this time
around, let the river choose its course.


For the GLRC, I’m Rebecca Williams.

Related Links

New Fish Virus Becoming Long-Term Threat?

Biologists are concerned a new fish virus may become an ongoing threat in the Great Lakes. The virus caused a fish die-off in Lake Ontario and the St. Lawrence River last month. The GLRC’s David Sommerstein reports:

Transcript

Biologists are concerned a new fish virus may become an ongoing threat in the Great Lakes.
The virus caused a fish die-off in Lake Ontario and the St. Lawrence River last month.
The GLRC’s David Sommerstein reports:


Viral Hemorrhagic Septicemia is common in saltwater fish in the Pacific Northwest,
but somehow the virus hopped into the freshwater fish of Lake St. Clair and Lake Ontario
last year. Then, last month, the virus killed hundreds of fish in the St. Lawrence River.
Scientists are trying to determine if the virus is a long-term threat to the Great Lakes
fishery:


“You know, that’s kind of the million dollar question.”


John Farrell directs the Thousand Islands Biological Station. He says many
fish species may become infected with the virus but not show symptoms:


“They may serve as a reservior for the virus. There’s a potential
that the virus could cycle over time, but may be with us for a long time to come.”


Conservation officials are most worried about muskies, trout and salmon – native
fish that anglers love to catch.


For the GLRC, I’m David Sommerstein.

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Dam Removal’s Balancing Act

  • The continued operation of hydroelectric dams will be up for debate in the next decade. Currently, the Army Corps of Engineers is looking to remove the Boardman River dam in northern Michigan. This dam removal could impact how all future dam removals are completed. (Photo courtesy of the Michigan Department of Natural Resources)

The Army Corps of Engineers is tackling a dam removal project that could affect how the Corps approaches future dam removals. In the next decade, communities will be deciding whether to keep operating tens of thousands of hydroelectric dams on rivers across the country. This project is significant because it involves several dams being taken out of production along the same stretch of river. The GLRC’s Bob Allen reports:

Transcript

The Army Corps of Engineers is tackling a dam removal project that
could affect how the Corps approaches future dam removals. In the next
decade, communities will be deciding whether to keep operating tens of
thousands of hydroelectric dams on rivers across the country. This
project is significant because it involves several dams being taken out of
production along the same stretch of river. The GLRC’s Bob Allen
reports:


(Sound of water)


The Boardman River is beautiful. It winds and turns and tumbles
through forested hillsides and passes along northern cedar swamps.
Sections of the upper river qualify as a blue ribbon trout stream, but a
series of dams along the lower half of the river changed some of the best
river water.


Steve Largent has worked on repairing damaged banks along the
Boardman for the last fifteen years. He says removing the dams will
restore faster flowing sections of the river, and clearing out the sand and
silt built up behind the dams will be good for trout and other critters.


“The sediment that is building up in the back of Brown Bridge pond
continues to move upstream as it fills in the upper end of the pond it’s
aggregrating upstream. It’s moving upstream further and further destroying
habitat further upstream.”


So a free running river will help wash away that sediment, but these days
it’s not just anglers who are interested in the Boardman River. Recently
river engineers have been drawn to the Boardman like trout to a fly
fisherman’s lure. They’re interested in landing the job of studying the
Boardman River and its dams. The million dollar study will look at
whether to keep or tear down three hydroelectric dams along a 17 mile stretch of river in northern Michigan just before it flows into Lake
Michigan.


Craig Fischenich is a research engineer with the Army Corps of
Engineers. He says the potential to remove three dams along the same
stretch of river is not something you’re going to find anywhere else.


“Whereas in many parts of the country they’re removing individual dams, they’re on systems that have other dams on them, and so this is an
opportunity here to actually try to restore an entire watershed.”


Fischenich says taking out the dams would mean improvements for
native fish. But there are risks too. If the dams go, invasive species
such as the parasitic sea lamprey could get upriver, and introduced
species such as steelhead and salmon could swim into the river and
compete with the native fish.


That prospect doesn’t exactly thrill John Wyrus, who lives on the
Boardman. He’d rather see some kind of obstacle down near the mouth
of the river to prevent introduced species from entering.


“So that these steelhead and salmon can’t get up the river. I would just
like to see it a brown trout and brook trout fishery.”


That’s the kind of scenario the study of the Boardman River would
consider.


(Sound of people talking)


Recently a lot of the engineers vying to do the study gathered at a
conference put together by the Corps of Engineers.


Gordon Ferguson works for ENSER Corporation. His company
is one of a dozen that submitted bids to land the study.


“This is a particularly interesting project because it involves a lot of
complex issues both from an engineering standpoint and also local
community issues. Property rights issues of homeowners along the
watershed.”


What they learn from the Boardman could be important to communities
near rivers across the nation.


Many of the tens of thousands of dams across the country are aging, and
in coming years, just like on the Boardman River, those with hydroelectric generating stations will need to be upgraded to keep their operating license.


The local utility says the dams on the Boardman don’t generate
enough power to make it worth fixing them. So they’re giving up the
licenses to generate electricity. Ownership of the dams reverts to the
local governments, and local officials are asking the Army Corps of
Engineers to pay for the study of the Boardman. The federal agency is
eager to be involved in this project.


The Boardman River study offers a chance for researchers to figure out
how to count less tangible values. Like how removing dams will affect
other wildlife such as eagles and osprey along the river.


Jock Coyngham is an ecologist for the Army Corps of Engineers.
Typically, he says, wildlife and recreation get discounted in this kind of
study because it’s easier to quantify things like hydropower, but it’s
important to figure out what value they have.


“If you make all your resource decisions as a state and as a country over
a long period of time pretty soon there won’t be any substantial fish
populations, any wild reproduction. Just because traditional cost-benefit
analysis tends to underestimate those ecosystem services and values, let
alone aesthetics.”


The Army Corps is waiting final approval for funding. Once given the
OK, the study of the Boardman River and its dams… could very well lay
the groundwork for other dam removals around the country.


For the GLRC, I’m Bob Allen.

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Ten Threats: Mercury and Health Problems

  • Fish advisories warn about possible mercury contamination, but many people aren't aware of the risks. (Photo by Lester Graham)

There’s no disputing that fish is healthful food, but too much of certain
kinds of fish can be dangerous, especially if you’re a woman planning to
have children. That’s because some fish contain elevated levels of
mercury. Mercury is a toxic contaminant that can cause neurological
damage. Julie Halpert filed this report about the harms mercury can
cause:

Transcript

We’re continuing our series ‘Ten Threats to the Great Lakes.’ One of the
threats identified by experts was air pollution that in turn pollutes the
lakes. The Great Lakes Radio Consortium’s Lester Graham is our guide
in this series. He says the next report looks at one pollutant that
eventually affects people.


There’s no disputing that fish is healthful food, but too much of certain
kinds of fish can be dangerous, especially if you’re a woman planning to
have children. That’s because some fish contain elevated levels of
mercury. Mercury is a toxic contaminant that can cause neurological
damage. Julie Halpert filed this report about the harms mercury can
cause:


Three years ago, when she was 18, Ayla Brown was healthy, but
suddenly, she started getting sick all the time. She was always tired, she
became anemic and had sore throats. Her tonsils had deteriorated so
much that they had to be removed. Her doctor couldn’t figure out why,
so he decided to test her for heavy metals poisoning.


The result? Ayla’s mercury levels were off the charts. They were five
times higher than the normal level. Her entire family was tested and
their levels also were above normal.


“The only conclusion we could come to is that in the past year or so since
we had moved to Ann Arbor, we had started eating a lot of fish and a lot
of fish that we now know is very known to be high in mercury, such as
swordfish and tuna and stuff like that.”


The Browns ate several meals of fish every week. Some of it was
ocean fish. Some of it was Great Lakes fish. After the diagnosis, they
cut fish out of their diet altogether. Within a year, the mercury levels
returned to normal.


“You are trying so hard to eat healthy and my family always was very
health conscious and so it’s so frustrating when you’ve done something
that you thought was good for you and realize that it was completely the
wrong thing.”


Fish are generally considered part of a healthy diet, but not all fish are
entirely safe. That’s because of mercury. Mercury exists naturally in the
environment at low levels, but higher amounts are getting into the food
chain.


Coal-burning power plants emit mercury, which eventually settles into
the Great Lakes. Then, aquatic microorganisms convert the substance
into methyl mercury, which is more toxic.


Those microorganisms form the base of the food chain. Small fish eat
microorganisms. Then, larger fish eat the smaller ones. As that happens,
the mercury concentrations escalate, making big large mouth fish like
trout, salmon and some walleye especially contaminated.


When people eat the fish, the mercury is passed on to them. Women of
childbearing age and their fetuses are most at risk.


Michael Carvan is with the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee’s Great
Lakes Water Institute. He says the exposure isn’t just from the fish that
women eat while they’re pregnant. A woman can pass her entire lifetime
load of mercury to her baby. He says that 15% of all women of
childbearing age have high enough levels so that their fetuses will
contain mercury of one part per million or higher.


“Even at really low levels, around one part per million, you’re talking
about some subtle coordination difficulties, you’re talking about
problems with memory and problems with neuro-processing and IQ
deficits.”


Because of these concerns, the Environmental Protection Agency and
the Food and Drug Administration issued an advisory for women of
childbearing age and children, suggesting they eat fish and shellfish only
twice a week.


But one expert is concerned by all this talk about how mercury harms
people. John Dellinger was on a task force, which provided guidance on
fish consumption advisories. Dellinger studied people who lived on
Lake Superior who he thought would eat a lot of fish, but he found
something else.


“We basically discovered that from an epidemiologic point of view, these
populations have other things that are adversely affecting their health,
that in fact will probably overshadow anything we’re going to see from
the contaminants in their fish.”


Dellinger said the people were so concerned about contaminants in
fish, that they started relying on store-bought, processed food instead.
Those foods were higher in fat and sugar and contained other, less
healthful, ingredients. So, obesity and diabetes caused health problems,
not mercury poisoning, and Dellinger says that ended up being a worse
situation.


He says the key is to choose wisely, avoiding fish such as swordfish,
tuna steaks and the larger predator Great Lakes fish that are high in
mercury. That’s the only measure you can take right now, but that doesn’t
solve the problem. The real challenge will be to get rid of the mercury
that ends up contaminating the fish.


For the GLRC, I’m Julie Halpert.

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Mercury Rule’s Impact on Great Lakes Fish

The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency has a new rule to reduce mercury emissions from coal-burning power plants. But it might mean higher concentrations of mercury in fish in some inland lakes. The Great Lakes Radio Consortium’s Lester Graham reports:

Transcript

The U.S. Environmental Protections Agency has a new rule to reduce mercury
emissions from coal-burning power plants. But it might mean higher
concentrations of mercury in fish in some inland lakes. The Great Lakes
Radio Consortium’s Lester Graham reports:


The Bush administration’s EPA rule will use a cap and trade program to
reduce mercury. That means that overall mercury emissions will go down
over time, but some dirtier power plants can buy the rights to emit higher
levels of mercury. That could cause mercury hot spots. Higher levels of
mercury in nearby lakes would work up the food chain and concentrate
in fish. Mercury can cause neurological damage, especially to young
children. The toxin also can be passed on to fetuses.


Canadian studies last year already have shown higher levels of mercury in
people who regularly eat Great Lakes fish. The problem is expected to
become more severe in mercury hotspots.


Historically, walleye has had more mercury than some other types of fish in
the Great Lakes, but other large fish such trout and salmon, can also have
higher levels of mercury in their flesh.


For the GLRC, this is Lester Graham.

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Invasive Fish Rears Ugly Head in Great Lakes

  • With its ability to breathe out of water and wriggle its way over land during dry spells, the media has dubbed the northern snakehead "Frankenfish." Its appearance in Lake Michigan is scary to scientists. (Photo courtesy of USGS)

A few weeks ago, a Chicago fisherman caused a stir when he found a northern snakehead fish. The discovery set off a frantic search to find out if yet another invasive species is threatening the Great Lakes. The Great Lakes Radio Consortium’s Jenny Lawton has this report:

Transcript

A few weeks ago, a Chicago fisherman caused a stir when he found a northern snakehead fish. The find set off a frantic search to find out if yet another invasive species is threatening the Great Lakes. The Great Lakes Radio Consortium’s Jenny Lawton has this report:


Just before Halloween, the so-called Frankenfish reared its ugly head… filled with sharp teeth… in Chicago’s Burnham Harbor on Lake Michigan. And it’s still a mystery as to just how it got there.


Although the snakehead is arare item in some Asian cuisines, there’s a more common suspicion amongst local experts and hobbyists. That snakehead was probably a pet that outgrew its tank, and instead of the traditional farewell down the toilet, it was set free in Lake Michigan. Free to eat through the Lake’s food web.


Local pet store manager Edwin Cerna says that’s why he stopped selling the fish years before they were banned by U.S. Fish and Wildlife. He remembers one day, when he was adjusting a tank, he accidentally got in between a snakehead’s lunch and its mouth.


“He bit me in the hand… made me bleed. It hurts. It’s got a nice strong jaw and that’s why it’s so dangerous because it can kill big fish, literally cut them in half. It’s almost like a big old killer whale, like a miniature version of it.”


But why on earth would anybody buy a vicious fish that can grow up to three feet long in the first place? Jim Robinett is with the Shedd Aquarium in Chicago. He says he’s a fish geek.


“I gotta say, as a little fish, when you first buy them, they’re really attractive; they’re neat little animals, but they eat like crazy. They’re voracious.”


Robinett knows not to be fooled by the little guys because what happens next is the perfect plot for a B-horror movie. He says the snakehead fish grows quickly, eventually eating everything in its tank. If it doesn’t die from overgrowing that tank, its owner might be tempted to dump it into a nearby body of water where it will keep eating its way up the food chain. Robinett says that’s the fear in Lake Michigan.


“They could potentially start picking off small salmon and lake trout, which is native to these waters here, they’re not real discriminating, they’ve been known to take things as large as frogs, some small birds, even small mammals that happen to get in the way there close to shore. They’ll eat anything they get their mouth on.”


Most hobby fish don’t last long in Chicago’s cold water. But the northern snakehead is different. The snakehead is native to northern Asia, and the Lake Michigan Federation’s Cameron Davis says that makes the fish feel right at home around here.


“It’s a lot like us Midwesterners, it just kind of hunkers down and… that’s part of the problem with the snakehead is that it can live under very extreme conditions. Which means it’ll out compete those other fish, and that’s a tremendous problem.”


Snakeheads have another edge on other species. The fish guard their eggs, giving their young a better chance of reaching maturity. But perhaps the most peculiar thing about snakeheads is that they can breathe. In addition to its gills, they have an organ that works like a lung and allows it to breathe air. It’s able to live up to three days as it uses its fins to wriggle across land in search of another body of water.


But looking down into the murky waters at Burnham Harbor, Davis says we shouldn’t run screaming yet. It’s not exactly a horror film scenario.


“I don’t think that the snakehead is going to come and grab our children out of schools and eat them or anything like that. But it is a problem for those of us who like to fish for yellow perch and whitefish and some of the things that make the Great Lakes so fantatstic, could really be threatened by this fish getting into Lake Michigan.”


Other invasive species cause an estimated 137-billion dollars of losses and damages in U.S. waterways each year. Cameron Davis says simply banning the local sale of fish like snakeheads hasn’t been enough to keep the Great Lakes safe.


“We’ve got to stop imports of these kinds of fish into the United States. We can’t protect the Great Lakes unless we’re checking these things at the door when they come into the country. It’s that simple.”


Davis is pushing for the passage of the National Aquatic Invasive Species Act. The bill would allocate a total of 174-million dollars to develop new technology for identifying and eliminating the invaders if and when they arrive.


So far, local authorities ahven’t found another snakehead near the banks of Lake Michigan, but Cameron Davis says the initial find just proves how hard it is to regulate what comes into the country’s largest body of fresh water.


Standing on the dock at Burnham Harbor, Davis looks out over the dark waters and shakes his head.


“It’s just an indicator that we’re in a race against time right now. Let’s hope that if there are more than one out there, that they haven’t hooked up.”


If they have, he says, it could truly be the stuff horror movies are made of… at least, for the other fish in the Great Lakes.


For the Great Lakes Radio Consortium, I’m Jenny Lawton in Chicago.

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