Author: Chris Julin

Water Gardens a Route for New Invasives

  • These two goldfish were pulled out of a pond in Duluth. They started out as small, aquarium goldfish, but when introduced into the wild, they can grow up to more than a foot in length. (Photo by Chris Julin)

You can hear frogs croaking and chirping in the middle of a city these days. You can see cattails and water lilies out your window even if you live nowhere near a lake. Water gardens are all the rage. But some scientists are warning that we have to be careful with our gardens. If plants or animals get out of a backyard pond, they can endanger native species. As part of an ongoing series called “Your Choice; Your Planet,” the Great Lakes Radio Consortium’s Chris Julin reports:

Transcript

You can hear frogs croaking and chirping in the middle of a city these days. You can see cattails and water lilies out your window even if you live nowhere near a lake. Water gardens are all the rage. But some scientists are warning that we have to be careful with our gardens. If plants or animals get out of a backyard pond, they can endanger native species. As part of an ongoing series called “Your Choice; Your Planet,” the Great Lakes Radio
Consortium’s Chris Julin reports:


For a while this spring, this pond was empty. Workers pumped out the water so they could catch fish. There were a few puddles, here and there on the pond bottom, and Tyler Winter got the job of scooping fish out of the puddles. He’s a college biology student. His five-gallon plastic bucket was half-full of fish — each one about the size of his hand.


“We got domestic goldfish, of various sizes and colors. This is the same kind of a thing that you would find at a pet store, but when introduced into the wild and they have more room to grow and they don’t die quickly, they can grow up to 10 or 16 inches.”


It appears that somebody — lots of somebodies — took the goldfish from their aquariums and water gardens and tossed them into this pond. They probably thought it was better than flushing the fish down the toilet.


The problem is, the pond flows into a designated trout stream. Trout need clean water, but goldfish stir up muck from the bottom when they feed. That could make the stream uninhabitable for trout.


People release lots of animals and plants, even though it’s often illegal. In the Great Lakes region alone, 38 species of aquatic animals and plants have reached the “infestation” level after being released into the wild. These plants and animals are crowding out native species.


(sound of gurgling pond)


Debbie Braeu’s back yard is thick with trees and shade-loving plants.


“There’s a pump in the pond that recirculates and the water comes down the stream, goes back up. As you can see, this is real close to our house, so we can sit and have coffee and we can watch the goldfish.”


The Braue’s run a nursery and landscaping business, and they’ve helped a lot of other people start water gardens. They’re big fans of native plants — irises and water lilies that naturally grow here. They sell some exotic pond plants, too, but not the ones that can escape, and live through a Great Lakes winter, and spread.


That’s what Barb Liukkonen likes to hear. She’s a hydrologist with Minnesota Sea Grant, and she’s trying to slow down the spread of non-native water plants. She wants gardeners to use more native plants.


“There are a lot of invasive aquatic plants — some that nobody would import intentionally. Things like Eurasian watermilfoil, or curly-leaf pondweed, things that cause a real problem in our lakes. But there are a whole range of plants that are being used for water gardens and to restore shorelines that may also be very invasive. They’re really pretty. Things like yellow iris, floating yellow heart — plants that look good, but they can be very invasive.”


Barb Liukkonen says gardeners sometimes put exotic plants in a lake intentionally — even though it’s against the law. And beyond that, gardeners sometimes spread exotic plants by accident. Liukkonen says the State of Minnesota recently paid for research into aquatic-plant-buying on the Internet.


“Ninety-two percent of time, the plants that are ordered had hitchhikers – that is, unintended plants or animals or seeds. And those can be introduced when you plant those plants along your shoreline or into your water garden.”


She says the researchers found something else disturbing.


“When they ordered plants that were prohibited, that is illegal to own or to plant or to sell in Minnesota, they still received them 13 our of 14 times. So even though they’re against the law here, people can still order those plants.”


Barb Liukkonen says local greenhouses are more likely to know what plants are banned in their areas. She and colleagues across the country are putting together a public education campaign. They’re designing stickers and fliers that businesses can attach to plants and aquariums. Their message is simple: Don’t release exotic plants and animals into the wild. Keep your goldfish and your garden plants at home.


For the Great Lakes Radio Consortium, this is Chris Julin in Duluth.

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Bears Cause a Scare in Midwest City

  • Alison Clarke shows how high the bear in her yard reached. Her bird feeder is more than 8 feet tall. Photo by Chris Julin.

The black bear population is growing throughout the upper Great Lakes region. Most of those bears live where you’d expect – in the woods. But now, a few bears have decided to move to town. And that’s making some people anxious. The Great Lakes Radio Consortium’s Chris Julin has this report:

Transcript

The black bear population is growing throughout the upper Great Lakes region. Most those bears
live where you’d expect – in the woods. But now, a few bears have decided to move to town.
And that’s making some people anxious. The Great Lakes Radio Consortium’s Chris Julin has
this report:


Alison Clarke lives in northern Minnesota in the city of Duluth. She has big windows that look out on her
backyard. There’s a pair of binoculars on the dining room table. And there’s a list of birds she’s
seen in the yard. Actually, she has more than birds on her list.


“Let’s see. March 16th was the first observation of bears this year. Grabbed the neighbors’ suet
that was hanging out there. That was probably the 300 pound or so sized one.”


Alison Clarke records a bear sighting every two or three days – sometimes in the middle of the
afternoon.


(sound of outdoors)


Out in her yard, she points to a bird feeder sitting on top of a wooden post.


“It’s eight and a half feet from the ground to the base of the feeder. The largest bear that we’ve
known can reach with its claws and nose up to the base of that feeder.”


This is the middle of town, but the yards are full of pine trees. Creeks and rivers wander all
through the neighborhood on their way to Lake Superior. And they make great thoroughfares for
bears. Bears have always walked through Duluth – on occasion. Now, about 10 bears have taken
up permanent residence in town.


Alison Clarke is on the lookout for bears. She keeps her garbage in the garage. She doesn’t leave
her windows or her sliding door open unless she’s nearby. But one time she walked around the
corner of her house and came face-to-face with a mother bear and her cubs.


“They’re not going to eat me, but if I were to surprise them, it’s
a significant potential danger.”


The Minnesota Department of Natural Resources put a trap in the yard a couple years ago. They
didn’t catch anything. The bears are so wise to the ways of people that one of them would stick
his head in the trap to check out the bait, but he never stepped into the cage.


So Alison Clarke wants the city of Duluth to get rid of the bears that live in town. That means
killing them. The Department of Natural Resources says there’s nowhere to relocate the bears.
Minnesota’s woods are full of bears. And besides, they say bears come right back if you catch and
release them.


Some people in the neighborhood want the bears removed. Some of the neighbors want the bears
left alone. And some of them aren’t sure.


(sound of Kirstin & Kyra)


Kirstin Peterson is digging in the garden with her four-year-old daughter, Kyra. They don’t come
out in the backyard after dusk. And Kyra isn’t allowed to play in the yard alone.


“I’m conflicted. I don’t know if I want the bear to be killed by humans just because we’ve entered
their territory. Or I’m not sure if they’ve entered ours. (Kyra: “Bears are scary.”). When it comes
to threatening my child, I get to be myself a mother bear. (Julin: “So what do you want to have
happen?”). For it to go away (nervous laugh).”


That probably isn’t going to happen. Martha Minchak is the state’s wildlife manager in Duluth.
She says the bears are comfortable in the city. She says the state will bring in professional
trappers to catch bears that are persistent trouble-makers – but that’s a last resort.


“If we do have really chronic problems, where folks have tried everything else they can do to
clean up the situation – remove the bird feeders, gas grills, pet food, that kind of thing – and the
bears continue to come back, then we’ll try to get the contract trappers out wherever we can set up
the traps and try and remove some of these bears.”


Last year in Duluth, a bear took a swipe at a 10-year-old boy on a bicycle. Martha Minchak says
people are lucky that no one’s gotten hurt yet. She wants the city of Duluth to bring in sharp-shooters, or have an archery hunt. But she says state and city budgets are so tight that nothing
like that will happen this year.


City hall is getting some phone calls about bears, but the city has no plans to take any action.


Some bear activists from Minneapolis are planning a workshop in Duluth. They want to
demonstrate guns that fire bean bags, and other “non-lethal” methods to chase bears away. State
wildlife managers say they’ll go to the workshop, but their number one priority is to get people in
Duluth to lock up their garbage and pet food and quit tempting the bears.


For the Great Lakes Radio Consortium, this is Chris Julin.

Ice-Breakers Finish Up Duty

  • The Coast Guard cutter Sundew was built in 1944 in Duluth as a "buoy tender." In 1979, the Coast Guard had the ship's hull reinforced and beefed up its engine so the ship could double as an icebreaker. Photo by Chris Julin.

Cargo ships are moving on the Great Lakes, but Coast Guard icebreakers are still on duty on the north side of the Lakes. The Coast Guard’s massive icebreaker, the “Mackinaw,” smashed ice from its home in Michigan all the way across Lake Superior to Duluth. And the Coast Guard cutter “Sundew” has been chipping away at the ice in Duluth for weeks. The Great Lakes Radio Consortium’s Chris Julin has this report:

Transcript

Cargo ships are moving on the Great Lakes, but Coast Guard icebreakers are still on duty on the
north side of the Lakes. The Coast Guard’s massive icebreaker, the “Mackinaw,” smashed ice
from its home in Michigan all the way across Lake Superior to Duluth. And the Coast Guard
cutter “Sundew” has been chipping away at the ice in Duluth for weeks. The Great Lakes Radio
Consortium’s Chris Julin has this report:


There’s a whiff of spring in the air in lots of places, but parts of Lake Superior are still covered
with ice. Cargo ships are leaving their berths where they spent the winter. But when the first
ships got ready to go, the ice on the Duluth Harbor was still two feet thick. That’s thick enough to
keep a ship locked in place.


The Coast Guard cutter Sundew carved a path through the ice so ships could leave.


(sound of chop, splash)


As the Sundew churns away, slabs of ice tip on edge under the bow. Each slab looks like the
floor of a single-car garage turned on edge. The Sundew will cut a swath several miles long, and
then come back along the same path. With each pass, the shipping lane gets a little bit wider.


Bev Havlik is the commanding officer on the Sundew.


“We’re taking out just little shaved bits of it at a time to make the ice chunks smaller. It’s like
sawing a log, just shaving off a bit of it at a time.”


“The Sundew wasn’t built as an icebreaker. It’s usual duty is tending buoys. The ship places, and
maintains about 200 navigational buoys on Lake Superior. But a couple decades ago, the Sundew
got some extra steel added to its hull, and a new, bigger engine. Since then, it’s done double duty
as an icebreaker.”


Commander Bev Havlik says the Sundew slices through thin ice like a butter knife. But in
thicker ice, like this stuff, the hull actually rides up on top of the ice and pushes down through it.
That’s why there are three mini-van-sized chunks of concrete on the ship’s deck. Each one weighs
12,000 pounds.
“It helps us bite into it with the bow, instead of riding up too high.” It keeps the weight down
forward more.”


A little bit like putting sandbags in the back of your pickup in the wintertime?


“It’s a similar sort of principle, right. It gives you the bite you need.”


Icebreaking is serious business. It gets ship traffic moving weeks before the ice melts. But
beyond that, Bev Havlik says it’s really fun.


“This is awesome. It’s the only job that I’d ever had where they pay us to come out and break
something.”


The Sundew is 180 feet long. That’s about the length of 10 canoes lined up end to end. It has
about 50 crew members. One of the junior crew members is usually at the wheel. The real
“driver” is an officer who’s standing 20 feet away, out on the deck through an open door. The
officer adjusts the ship’s speed, and calls out a steady stream of steering commands to the
“helmsman” — that’s the guy at the wheel.


(sound of Helsman)


“Right five-degrees rudder … steady as she goes, aye.”


Ensign Jason Frank is about to take his turn driving the Sundew. He wears a big rabbit fur hat
when he’s out on the deck driving the ship.


“We actually have face masks and goggles for when it really gets cold. It gets so cold out here
sometimes it feels like your eyes are going to freeze out, or something.”


(natural sound)


Jason Frank is halfway through his two-year stint on the Sundew. Then he’ll be stationed
somewhere else, and the Sundew will be removed from service. The ship was built in Duluth in
1944, and it’s retiring next year. Jason Frank wanted to work on the Sundew because aren’t many
ships like this still in service. On newer vessels, the officer driving the ship stands inside. And
here’s something right out of the movies – the Sundew has a big, brass steering wheel.


“Whereas with the new ships, most the new ships have just a little joystick. It’s very similar to
like a joystick you’d have maybe when you’re playing a computer game or something. All you
have to do is turn that joystick and the computer tells the rudder what to do. We’re actually
maneuvering the throttles, we’re actually driving. With the new ship, basically it has an
autopilot.”


The ice is melting in the Duluth Harbor, but it still clumps together on windy days and makes
trouble for ships. The Coast Guard cutter Sundew will stay on ice-breaking duty until the
weather warms up, and a good southwest wind pushes the rest of the ice out of the harbor into
Lake Superior.


For the Great Lakes Radio Consortium, this is Chris Julin.


(sound fade)

Lynx Found in Northwoods

The Canada lynx used to live in forests from New York to Minnesota, but some people doubted that the northern relative of the bobcat still lived in the Great Lakes region. Now, biologists have confirmed that lynx are in northern Minnesota. The Great Lakes Radio Consortium’s Chris Julin reports:

Transcript

The Canada lynx used to live in forests from New York to Minnesota, but some people doubted that the northern relative of the bobcat still lived in the Great Lakes region. Now, biologists have confirmed that lynx are in northern Minnesota. The Great Lakes Radio Consortium’s Chris Julin reports:

Biologists have been trying to snag hair from lynx for the past couple years. None of the “hair traps” around the Great Lakes turned up any lynx fur. So researchers in the Superior National Forest tried following tracks where people said they had seen lynx. They collected samples of hair and droppings. Superior National Forest spokeswoman Jo Barnier says DNA tests confirm that some of the droppings came from lynx.

“We’re not sure exactly what it means beyond that fact that we know they’re here this year. What we don’t know is whether we have lynx here year after year, and how many individual lynx we may have.”

The evidence of the lynx won’t mean any changes in logging or recreation. Forest managers in much of the lynx’ former range already follow rules assuming the presence of lynx.

In Duluth, this is Chris Julin for the Great Lakes Radio Consortium.

A Fish Eye View of the Lakes

  • The "Benthic Explorer" now sits on the bottom of Lake Superior and provides live pictures of its underwater world. Photo by Chris Julin.

If you’ve ever been curious about what goes on at the bottom of the world’s largest lake, you can take a look for yourself – and you don’t even have to get wet. A device called the “fishcam” is sitting under 35 feet of water in Lake Superior and it’s now sending pictures to the Internet. Researchers say it’s the only permanently mounted underwater camera in the world sending live images back to shore. The pictures are fun to look at, but researchers say they’re also useful to biologists who study underwater life in the Great Lakes. The Great Lakes Radio Consortium’s Chris Julin has the story:

Transcript

If you’ve ever been curious about what goes on at the bottom of the world’s largest lake, you can take a look for yourself — and you don’t even have to get wet. A device called the “fish cam” is sitting under 35-feet of water in Lake Superior and it’s now sending pictures to the Internet. Researchers say it’s the only permanently mounted underwater camera in the world sending live images back to shore. The pictures are fun to look at, but researchers say they’re also useful to biologists who study underwater life in the Great Lakes.


The Great Lakes Radio Consortium’s Chris Julin has the story.


A team of researchers put the camera underwater more than a year ago. It sits on the lake bottom, several miles from Duluth. The researchers have watched pictures from the “fish cam” for months, but now, anyone with a computer hooked to the Internet can get a scuba diver’s view of the bottom of Lake Superior. The research team recently gathered at the Great Lakes Aquarium in Duluth to unveil the “fish cam” website. Fish expert Greg Bambenek has had the fish cam hooked-up to the computer at his house, but at the aquarium, he watched the fish cam on the screen of a laptop.


“That’s streaming out on the web right now. It’s updated every ten seconds. The fish there are mullet. At night, we have a micro-cam that brings the zooplankton into close focus, and at times you’ll see the mullet eating the zooplankton.”


Those zooplanktons are tiny animals called “water fleas.” They’re fractions of an inch long –far too small to show up through the fish cam’s standard lens. But Bambanek says it’s a different story at night, when the fish cam switches to a magnifying lens, and the computer screen comes alive with little critters.


“Leptodora is the large one. Then you’ll see little copepods that kind of look like Pokemon creatures with the antennas coming off their head, and they’re smaller. They’re only a couple millimeters, so you wouldn’t be able to see them if you were diving in the water.”


The people gathered to see the fish cam’s first Internet images had to settle for a murky picture. A strong northeast wind was blowing in off the lake, kicking up big waves, and stirring up the bottom. The researchers say big waves make for blurry pictures. Even so, lots of fish were visible in the frame. The fish might be crowding in because researchers are releasing fish scent through a special tube attached t the camera. But photographer Doug Hajicek says it’s surprising how many fish swim past even without the fish scent. Hajicek designed and built the underwater camera, and he’s been watching a private feed from the fish cam for months.


“This lake is extremely alive. There is a food chain that is so delicate and tiny. Everybody thinks of Lake Superior as just a sterile body of water, and we’re hoping to change that.”


Some of the fish that swim into view are called ruffe, a non-native species that’s invading the Great Lakes. Researcher Greg Bambenek says it is surprising see so many ruffe here, six miles from Duluth. He says biologists believed ruffe stayed closer to harbors. Bambenek says that’s just one example of the valuable information about life in the Great Lakes that scientists can get from the fish cam.


“We can take freeze-frame, count the number of zooplankton, count the number of fish, and also look at it over time, and also see what does a northeaster do? What do the fish do? Do they leave? Do they come back? What does water temperature do? We have a temperature sensor down there. We also have a hydrophone so we can hear what’s going on underneath the water. So, it is a research tool.”


Bambenek says the research team learned a lot during the year it took to get the camera up and running on the Internet. He says the team is planning to put another camera in Lake Superior, farther from shore, and hopes to put a third camera somewhere on the floor of the ocean.


You can see images from the Lake Superior fish cam at Duluth.com/fishcam.


For the Great Lakes Radio Consortium, this is Chris Julin in Duluth.

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Bear Hunt Casts Wider Net

  • In this year’s bear hunt Minnesota is allowing hunters to take two bears with each hunting license the state issues. Photo by Don Breneman

The number of black bears is increasing across North America, but the fastest-growing bear populations are in the Great Lakes region. The most recent estimates put the region’s population at over 60,000. In Minnesota, the bear population has quadrupled in the past two decades. Wildlife managers think the population is getting too big, and this fall the state is trying to help hunters kill more bears. Minnesota is offering a “two-for-one” deal on bear permits. Hunters can buy one license, and kill two bears. And the state is opening hunting season early, in the last week of August. Some people are upset. They say there’s no need to increase the bear kill. The Great Lakes Radio Consortium’s Chris Julin has the story:

Reviving Songs of the Great Lakes

Ships continue to steam on across the Great Lakes this summer, and that gives Lee Murdock something to sing about. Murdock has made his career singing songs of the Lakes; from 200-year-old sailors’ work songs, to his own compositions based on Great Lakes folklore. The Great Lakes Radio Consortium’s Chris Julin caught up with Murdock at a concert in Duluth, and he filed this report:

Managing Growing Black Bear Populations

  • A black bear peers from behind a cedar in the northwoods. - photo by Don Breneman

The number of black bears in the northern portions of the Great Lakesregion is increasing. And in some places, such as Minnesota, the blackbear population has reached an all-time high. So officials are lookingfor ways to control the numbers, before the population becomes too largeand the bears begin causing problems for humans. In Minnesota, thestate relies heavily on a hunting season. But this year’s season hasjust ended (Oct. 15) and it was not the success officials had hopedfor. And that could mean more bear problems next year. The Great LakesRadio Consortium’s Chris Julin reports:

Transcript

The number of black bears in the northern portions of the Great Lakes region is
increasing. And in some places, such as Minnesota, the black bear population has
reached an all-time high. So officials are looking for ways to control the numbers, before
the population becomes too large and the bears begin causing problems for humans. In
Minnesota, the state relies heavily on a hunting season. But this year’s season has just
ended (Oct. 15) and it was not the success officials had hoped for. And that could mean
more bear problems next year. The Great Lakes Radio Consortium’s Chris Julin reports.


Miles from the nearest town, in the woods of northern Minnesota, you can always see
bears at Carol Suddendorf’s place … or at least parts of bears. Bearskin mittens and
hats and mukluks hang from the wall. Suddendorf and her husband run a taxidermy
and clothing business, and they process a lot of bear hides. Carol Suddendorf loves to
watch living bears, too. With a fond smile, she talks about the bears she sees at least
once a week.


“If you’re driving around the
country roads in the evening, as the sun goes down, you often see them
crossing the road.”


In wooded areas across the Great Lakes, black bears are part of everyday life.
Suddendorf has lived in the woods for 20 years. She says she quickly learned the
basics — keep the garbage and the dog food inside, because there’s no doubt bears
will come looking for something to eat.


“A lot of it’s at night. The security
lights trigger a lot and you don’t know quite what’s out there. But a lot of
times in the daytime they’ll wander through, or you’ll get up in the morning
and there’ll be fresh tracks in the garden. They like to go over to the bird
feeder and help themselves to the sunflower seeds, and they can do a fair
amount of damage, but we just put up with it.”


Suddendorf sees more bears than she used to…and no wonder. The bear population is
growing throughout the Great Lakes … nowhere faster than in Minnesota. The state’s
Department of Natural Resources, or D-N-R, figures the bear population in Minnesota
has just about quadrupled since 1980, up to nearly 30-thousand. The D-N-R’s lead
bear researcher, Dave Garshelis, says that 30-thousand bears might be the most
Minnesota can handle without running into problems … but he’s not sure.


“We once said, and this was back in the
1980s, that boy, about 10-thousand bears would be just about right in
Minnesota. And then as we realized that we’re already over that, we’re to 15,
then we said let’s go ahead and stabilize it at 15. And we weren’t able to do
that, so here we are again in the year 2000 saying 30-thousand would be
okay, so if we can live with 30-thousand, that’s great. The more bears, the
better. It’s better for bears, it’s better for people seeing bears, and it’s better
for hunters that want to hunt bears.”


The state tries to limit the bear population through hunting. Because the population
has gotten so large, it opened this year’s bear season a week early, and issued an
increased number of permits with hopes of holding the bear population steady…but it
hasn’t worked out. The state planned on a bear kill of six-thousand, but it looks like
hunters got fewer than four thousand.


(sound of crunch, zipper zips…”I’m empty-handed, yeah” chuckle)
(sound of ducks)


It’s getting dark, and Dan Thomason is wrapping up his last day of hunting in the
woods behind his house, near the town of Two Harbors. He’s dressed in green
camouflage from hat to boots. He packs up his rifle and gear, including a portable
metal seat he’d strapped to a tree so he could watch his bait from ten feet above.


“The five-gallon plastic bucket there is just
what I use to carry bait out to the baiting site. The bait I’ve been using is
whatever bakery goods I can get my hands on. Molasses, oats, sunflower
seeds. Anything that’s sweet or seems enticing to a bear.”


Like thousands of hunters, Thomason started setting bait in August. A bear stopped
by Thomason’s bait station after dark several nights to snack on the sweets, but it
never come by in the daylight. So, like most hunters this year, Thomason didn’t get a
bear.


Researcher Dave Garshelis, says bears had abundant wild food this year — acorns and
berries — so the bears stayed away from hunters’ bait. The good news was, they also
stayed away from garbage cans and houses. In spite of the record number of bears,
Garshelis says the state has taken only a few hundred phone calls about “nuisance
bears” this year. In years when wild food is scarce, he says they get thousands of
calls.


“In those bad food years we’ve had
these, like horror stories of bears going into a restaurant, going into a
taxicab, and frequently going into people’s houses. I mean I was hearing
calls about that a lot. You know they’re not easy to keep out. It’s the kind of
thing where they can break through a window, easily go through a screen.”


Garshelis says bears’ supply of natural food follows a cycle. In northern states, food is
scarce every five years or so, and Garshelis says the region is OVERDUE for a “bad
food year.”


With the large population of bears now in the woods, Garshelis says the next food
shortage could bring an extraordinary number of clashes between bears and humans.
That worries him. He says he doesn’t want to return to a time when EVERY bear was a
nuisance, and the state paid 25 dollars for a dead one.


For the Great Lakes Radio Consortium, this is Chris Julin in Duluth.

Keeping a Sharp Eye on Migrating Raptors

It’s fall and the bird thoroughfares that head south are crowded. In North America, migrating birds tend to cluster in what biologists call major flyways. There’s one along the east coast, another along the Rocky Mountains, and another along the Mississippi River. On this central route, hawks and eagles squeeze into a bottleneck at the western tip of the Great Lakes, and each fall thousands of them stream over a place called Hawk Ridge in Duluth, Minnesota. The Great Lakes Radio Consortium’s Chris Julin has more:

Transcript

It’s fall and the bird thoroughfares that head south are crowded. In North
America, migrating birds tend to cluster in what biologists call four major
flyways. There’s one along each coast, another along the Rocky Mountains,
and another along the Mississippi River. On this central route, hawks and
eagles squeeze into a bottleneck at the western tip of the Great Lakes, and
each fall thousands of them stream over a place called Hawk Ridge in
Duluth, Minnesota. The Great Lakes Radio Consortium’s Chris Julin has
More.

(Sound of people shifting feet on a gravel road. One person says “Here
comes a low one.”)

It’s chilly for a September morning, and it’s a weekday, but about 20
people stand on a gravel road that skirts a ridge 800 feet above Lake
Superior. Below, a huge freighter steams out of the Duluth harbor in the
misty sunshine. Above, dozens of hawks seem to turn in unending circles.
For watching birds of prey…or raptors…this is one of the best spots on
the continent.

“Top five. It’s for sure in the top give in North America.”

Nia Palmersten is the naturalist at Hawk Ridge. She says some years,
between August and December 100-thousand raptors fly past this spot. Many
of the country’s most popular hawk watching posts are lucky to get
20-thousand birds in a season… that many raptors flew past Hawk Ridge
in one day this September.

These birds are flying south from Canada and Alaska on North America’s
central flyway. Hawks and eagles tend to avoid big stretches of open water,
so when they hit Lake Superior, they follow the shoreline, which funnels
them through Duluth, at the western tip of the lake.

“It’s an amazing spectacle.”

Pershing Hofslund is a retired ornithology professor from the University of
Minnesota in Duluth. He says many raptors like to soar to conserve energy,
so they congregate at Hawk Ridge to ride the updrafts bouncing off the
cliffs. They spiral high into the air, and then coast south…sometimes
making hundreds of miles in one day.

“I counted — laying on my back and looking up — counted 16-hundred
coming off of just one of these spirals.”

Hofslund is 83, and he’s watched birds at Hawk Ridge for 50 years. He says
he’s seen a big change in people’s attitude toward raptors.

“When I grew up, hawks were varmints. I knew my mother had a chicken
yard, and if we saw a hawk out there, we were afraid they were going to get
the young chickens. And you’d pick up a Field and Stream magazine, anything
like that, and they’d have articles on how to shoot them.”

People used to come to Hawk Ridge to shoot the birds for target practice,
but activists with the Duluth Bird Club put a stop to the shooting by 1950.
They also collected donations to buy land at the highest point on the ridge
and make it a nature preserve. Since then hawk numbers have mostly held
steady, or even increased for some species. These days on the ridge, people
hunt hawks with binoculars … and naturalist Nia Palmersten says they NEED
them. Thousands of hawks might fly past, but most of them are specks to the
naked eye.

“Binoculars are a must. And you learn. You have to scan all around
you at all times a watch for them to come. Sometimes they come low,
sometimes they’re up way high.”

And even if you do see a lot of birds it takes practice to know what you’re
looking at.

(Sound of “Did you see a merlin?)

Palmersten spends much of her day helping people identify what they’ve seen.

(sound re-establishes “not a very long tail, but somewhat of a tail, where
a sharp-shin’s going to have a very long rudder-like tail)

Palmersten also spends time keeping eager birders from pestering Hawk
Ridge’s official bird counter Frank Niccoletti. Niccoletti has to
concentrate. He’s counting swirling specks in the sky…making sure to
tally each of them just once…noting which distant dot is a broadwing
hawk…which one is a northern harrier. Frank Niccoletti says he can tell
if an eagle is an adult or a juvenile from three miles.

“You know you’re looking at a bird at a great distance, and you’re
watching it move. You’re not looking for field marks, but you’re looking at
the shape of the wings, you know how long is the tail proportioned to how
long the wings are, and that’s what you’re looking for.”

Niccoletti grimaces a little at the suggestion that he has an inborn knack
for identifying hawks. What he HAS, he says, is 20 years of intense practice.

“And it’s just an art. You know some people know how to write, you
know, or some people know how to play the piano. I identify hawks, and birds.”

Birders less eagle-eyed than Niccoletti can still enjoy the challenge of
identifying raptors. Kim Mills makes the five-hour drive from southern
Minnesota each fall to spend a few days on Hawk Ridge.

“You know every time I come up here I learn, and I learn more and I
learn more. I kind of listen to what other people are saying, and what
they’re seeing, and it’s intriguing. I love it.”

Amateurs come to Hawk Ridge to learn, but so do scientists. Researchers
catch and strap leg bands on thousands of hawks each fall. Biologists from
across the continent spend time here studying raptor populations trends,
diseases, and migration patterns.

By the end of September, most small hawks have passed through, but there
might be thousands more. Bigger raptors…red-tailed hawks and bald
eagles…will pass the ridge in their largest numbers during October.

For the Great Lakes Radio Consortium, this is Chris Julin in Duluth.

Could Pheromones Control Invasive Ruffe?

In some parts of the Great Lakes the Eurasian ruffe, an accidentalimport, now makes up 80 percent of the fish, and might be crowding outalready-struggling native species. Now researchers at the University ofMinnesota believe they can use pheromones from the fish to reduce thespread of ruffe in the Great Lakes. The Great Lakes Radio Consortium’sChris Julin reports from Duluth:

Transcript

In some parts of the Great Lakes the Eurasian ruffe, an accidental import,
now makes up 80-percent of the fish, and might be crowding out
already-struggling native species. Now researchers at the University of
Minnesota believe they can use pheromones from the fish to
reduce the spread of ruffe in the Great Lakes. The Great Lakes Radio
Consortium’s Chris Julin reports from Duluth.


Animals release pheromones to communicate with other members of their
species. Biologists found that Eurasian Ruffe release a particular
pheromone when they’re injured, or frightened.

“It’s the smell of fear as it were.”

Peter Sorenson is one of the University of Minnesota researchers who
identified the “alarm pheromone” in ruffe. He says it’s easy to extract the
chemical from the fishes’ skin, and then spread it in the water, telling
the fish, in essence to “keep away.”

“I’m not thinking of controlling them for the entire Lake Superior or
anything, but I’m thinking of keeping them out of dock areas in Duluth, or
if there’s a particular channel that they have to move through to spawn in
the spring, you might be able to keep them out of a few key areas.”

So far tests have been limited to the lab, but Sorenson hopes to work with
government agencies to try the technique in the Great Lakes.

For the Great Lakes Radio Consortium, this is Chris Julin in Duluth.