People who fish the Great Lakes for a living are getting a chance for some training in fisheries management. The Great Lakes Radio Consortium’s Lester Graham reports:
Transcript
People who fish the Great Lakes for a living are getting a chance for some training in
fisheries management. The Great Lakes Radio Consortium’s Lester Graham reports:
The Great Lakes Sea Grant Network has put together a program for commercial fishers,
charter boat captains, tribal fishers, sport-fishing groups and others. The program is
called the Great Lakes Fisheries Leadership Institute. The Institute’s goal is to better
inform those people through science training and leadership training. Brian Miller is with
the Illinois-Indiana Sea Grant. He says they hope to train a new generation of people in
the fisheries:
“In a lot of the organizations the leadership is aging and there is a need for new leaders to
emerge that have a good biology and scientific background that helps them understand a
lot of the complex issues they’re dealing with in the lake.”
The Sea Grant Network has found too often individual interests are so wrapped up in
their one issue, they lose sight of the bigger picture – the overall environmental health of
the Great Lakes. It’s hoped that the training will give them a greater perspective.
For the Great Lakes Radio Consortium, this is Lester Graham.
Asian carp are the new poster fish in the campaign against invasive species. For years, foreign invaders like the zebra mussel, the round goby, and now the carp have been threatening the ecosystem of the Great Lakes. Like their fellow species of concern, the carp have no natural predators to keep their numbers in check. Ecologists report that they are now closing in on Lake Michigan from the Mississippi and Illinois rivers. This has authorities in the U.S. and Canada stepping up efforts to control them. The Great Lakes Radio Consortium’s Diantha Parker reports:
Transcript
Asian carp are the new poster fish in the campaign against invasive species. For years, foreign invaders like the zebra mussel, the round goby, and now the carp have been threatening the ecosystem of the Great Lakes. Like their fellow species of concern, the carp have no natural predators to keep their numbers in check. Ecologists report that they are now closing in on Lake Michigan from the Mississippi and Illinois rivers. This has authorities in the U.S. and Canada stepping up efforts to control them. The Great Lakes Radio Consortium’s Diantha Parker reports:
The Asian carp now in the spotlight are the silver and bighead varieties, and they share traits that worry environmentalists.
For one thing, they’re large…sometimes reaching up to a hundred pounds in less than three years. They escaped from fish farms in Mississippi about twenty years ago, and have been making their way up the Mississippi River ever since.
The carp voraciously consume the same microscopic organisms that native fish depend on.
They’ll out-eat anything in their midst. That means game fish won’t have as much to eat, and their populations will suffer.
And the carp are invasive in other ways, too. At a recent news conference a few yards from Lake Michigan, journalists and curious passersby inspected three enormous dead carp laid out on a folding table…glistening in the sun next to Pam Theil, a project leader at the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service.
“It sounds sensational, but they can jump out of the water into your boat. A gentleman who works for the Illinois Natural History Survey has gotten hit four times, the last time he had to file for workman’s compensation with a neck injury. A commercial fisherman on the Caskaskia River got his nose broken. And there are reports of people on the Caskaskia, who are going out fishing, or just recreation in their boat…they’re taking cookie sheets with them to act as a shield, so that they don’t get hit.”
The newest weapon in the Great Lakes Fight against the carp is an electronic barrier.
It was built in April by the Army Corps of Engineers and the International Joint Commission, an organization that oversees the use of waterways between the U.S. and Canada.
The electronic barrier sits in the Chicago Sanitary and Ship Canal about 30 miles downstream from the city. The Canal is a manmade link between Lake Michigan and the Chicago River. This particular spot was chosen for the barrier because it’s a revolving door between the Great Lakes and the Mississippi River basin.
The barrier itself consists of about one hundred and sixty wires, spaced a few feet apart, that lie crosswise along the bottom of the canal. The wires emit electrical impulses to deter all fish that approach them.
“There is a charge that is applied to those cables.”
Dennis Schornack is U.S. chairman of the International Joint Commission.
“Not a real strong charge, not one that would be harmful to people, if they fell into the
canal, but strong enough for fish to sense it, and when they sense this charge in the water they turn, and turn back down the river.”
Right now, the electronic barrier is only in an 18 month test phase. The authorities involved say after that time is up, funding from Congress will be needed to keep it in operation.
Some people wonder why we can’t just catch these invasive carp and eat them. But while the carp are a popular food source in Asia, they’ve been slow to catch on here, says Pam Theil.
“I think that there is a mentality that we’d rather be eating walleye or something than carp.”
But a chicken processing plant in southern Illinois has looked into processing the carp…they’ve taste tested it as a product similar to tuna, but are still deciding whether it’s marketable.
For the Great Lakes Radio Consortium, I’m Diantha Parker.
Anglers in Lake Superior are looking forward to the return of the coaster brook trout. The native trout was fished nearly to extinction in the early 1900s. New efforts to help the remaining populations rebound are attracting the interest of fisheries managers around the Great Lakes. The Great Lakes Radio Consortium’s Stephanie Hemphill has the story:
Transcript
Anglers in Lake Superior are looking forward to the return of the coaster brook trout. The native trout was fished nearly to extinction in the early 1900s. New efforts to help the remaining populations rebound are attracting the interest of fisheries managers around the Great Lakes. The Great Lakes Radio Consortium’s Stephanie Hemphill reports:
The French River tumbles into Lake Superior about 15 miles from Duluth. It’s a popular fishing spot, and people are catching rainbow trout. Rainbows are not native to Lake Superior. The Minnesota Department of Natural Resources stocks them from the fish hatchery across the road.
People used to catch coaster brook trout here, but
there aren’t many of the fish around anymore.
“I haven’t seen one of those in years.”
“There aren’t any coaster brook trout. You’re dreaming.”
“‘You very seldom get them, but when you do they’re nice.’ Hemphill: ‘Why are they nice?’ ‘They’re so nice and clean, the colors are so beautiful.’ Hemphill: ‘Are they good eating?’ ‘Oh-h-h, there isn’t any better.'”
For a freshwater fish, coasters are colorful. Their sides are sprinkled with bright red dots. Their fins are edged with a bright white line. When they spawn, their bellies turn iridescent orange.
They hatch in rivers, and then swim downstream to grow up in the lake. They return to the river to spawn.
There used to be lots of coasters around Lake Superior, and in northern Lake Michigan and Lake Huron. They were a popular sport fish. In the 1850s, people came from all over to catch them. By the early 1900s coasters had practically disappeared.
Don Schreiner is the Department of Natural Resources fisheries supervisor in this part of Minnesota. He says coasters are fairly easy to catch. And that’s why they almost disappeared.
“There were no roads up here, people came in by boat, they came in by train. There’s accounts of people standing on the shore and on the riverbank and catching hundreds of brook trout.”
After the fishermen, lumberjacks came. They cut down the big trees that shaded the streams. They floated timber down the rivers, eroding the banks. Now these rivers are much more susceptible to flooding and sedimentation. The coaster brook trout need a rocky bottom, not a mud bottom, to spawn.
Then the state began stocking other fish here, so anglers would have something to catch. Pacific salmon, European brown trout. They compete with the few native brook trout that still survive in Lake Superior streams.
Some people want to try to restore the native brook trout. But others like to catch the big salmon, and the feisty rainbows. Don Schreiner says the DNR has to balance those competing demands.
“I think everybody cares about coaster brook trout as long as it doesn’t cost them anything personally. If I have to give up my favorite species in favor of a coaster brook trout, I might not be willing to do that. That’s the sort of thing we see.”
Angling restrictions imposed in the last few years have helped the trout. Schreiner says it’s possible they’ll bounce back, if people leave them alone, but improving the habitat is also key. That could take 50 years.
Some groups are trying to push things along a little faster.
The Red Cliff Tribal Fish Hatchery near Bayfield Wisconsin specializes in rearing coaster brook trout. Every year a million eggs are hatched here.
“Inside this building is where we keep our adult brood stock fish.”
Greg Fischer is the hatchery manager. He says they raise some fish for a year and a half before releasing them. Workers mark these fish to keep track of them in the wild.
“We have fin clipping parties where for several days we fin-clip each one of the fish, and when we’re stocking anywhere from 50 to 80,000 of these larger fish a year, that’s a lot of marking”
Some coasters from the hatchery might find a home at Whittlesey Creek near Ashland, Wisconsin. The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service is turning Whittlesey Creek into a refuge for coaster brook trout.
Biologist Lee Newman says it’s a promising spot for spawning. Springs seep up through the gravel bottom. That provides the eggs with a constant flow of oxygen. Newman wants to plant eggs and very young fry directly over the springs. That’s what they did on the Grand Portage Chippewa reservation in Minnesota. And Newman says it worked there.
“We’ve captured pairs of adults that were radio tagged and captured on their spawning beds, and two years later catch the exact same pair on the exact same spawning beds, indicating that they are returning precisely to their home locations.”
Newman says when the fish are very young they can imprint on the chemistry of the stream, and find their way back years later.
Biologists still have a lot of questions about how to help the coaster brook trout. But right now, at least, its future looks a little brighter. For the Great Lakes Radio Consortium, I’m Stephanie Hemphill.
Mercury emissions from more than 150 coal-burning power plants across the Great Lakes are coming under greater scrutiny this summer. Several states are considering ways to reduce those emissions. Wisconsin could become the first state in the nation to issue rules requiring large mercury reductions. The Great Lakes Radio Consortium’s Chuck Quirmbach has the story:
The U-S Fish And Wildlife Service is planning to ban lead sinkers in
parts of the national wildlife refuge system. The agency wants to
reduce lead poisoning in loons. The Great Lakes Radio Consortium’s
Stephanie Hemphill reports:
A plan by the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers is
intended to stop invasive species from traveling between the Great Lakes and
the Mississippi river and its tributaries.
The government is trying to stop an invader from expanding from the GreatLakes into the Mississippi River system. The Great Lakes Radio Consortium’sLester Graham reports… the field of battle is a small channel nearChicago:
Similar scenes can be found up and down the eastern shore of
Lake
Michigan.
Now that summer’s officially here, beaches around the region are packed with
tourists and locals. But this year many beaches have been plagued with
unwanted visitors: tens of thousands of dead fish in the water and on the
sand. It’s a revolting sight-and smell – but in fact, the fish play an
important role in the lakes…and present an ongoing management challenge to
biologists. The Great Lakes Radio Consortium’s Wendy Nelson explains:
In many ways, the double-crested cormorant is a wildlife success story. The
birds were almost wiped out by pesticide exposure in the 1960’s. But in
recent years, they’ve returned in large numbers to prime fishing areas in
the Great Lakes and elsewhere. In fact, they’re so good at catching fish,
commercial fishermen have been affected. In the first of a two part series,
the Great Lakes Radio Consortium’s Karen Kelly found that the biologists who
protect these birds are also looking for ways to get rid of them:
The double-crested cormorant has been an enemy of fishermen for centuries.
They’ve eaten salmon on the Atlantic coast, catfish in Missouri and game
fish in the Great Lakes. Fishermen complain the cormorants are bad for
business. And last summer, fishing guides on Lake Ontario made their point
by killing more than two thousand birds. A year later, they’ve been caught
and arrested. In the second of a two part series, the Great Lakes Radio
Consortium’s Karen Kelly reports the effect of those killings is still being
felt:
Late last month (June), the New York State Department of Health said it
was safe for anglers to eat fish from Onondaga Lake–one of the
country’s most polluted lakes. But now some officials are raising
concerns. The Great Lakes Radio Consortium’s Amy Cavalier reports:
