A new report indicates a commonly used pesticide is linked to public health problems. The GLRC’s Lester Graham reports the findings contradict government assessments in the U.S and Canada:
Transcript
A new report indicates a commonly used pesticide is linked to public
health problems. The GLRC’s Lester Graham reports the findings
contradict government assessments in the U.S and Canada:
The herbicide 2,4-D is found in hundreds of pesticide mixes for lawns
and crops. For 60 years it’s been the most widely used herbicide in the
world. It’s cheap and it’s effective.
Its impact on human health has been studied again and again. While
there have been suspicions about its affects on health, the US and
Canadian governments have maintained that 2,4-D can be used safely on
lawns and crops if the label directions are followed. But a report in the
journal, Pediatrics and Child Health, contradicts the governments’
assessments.
The Canadian authors of the report say 2,4-D is “persuasively linked” to
cancer, neurological damage and reproductive problems. The report
specifically points at Canadian government studies on animals. They say
those animal studies miss the problems that physicians are finding among
children who play on lawns and other people exposed to 2,4-D.
George Good encourages an ewe to come to her twin lambs. Spring
lambing was once a significant seasonal moment on the family farm which
often had a variety of livestock. Today, most farms specialize in only one
or two animals or crops. (photo by Lester Graham)
Raising sheep supplemented a farm family's income in years past.
Today, most farms don't bother with small flocks because there's not enough
return for the time spent caring for the animals. (Photo by Lester Graham)
In a very few areas, raising sheep has become more popular
because immigrant Arab, Greek, and other Middle-Eastern people have created
new markets for lamb. (Photo by Lester Graham)
Even if you didn’t grow up on a farm, springtime seems to bring with it thoughts of baby chicks and spring lambs. But it’s not as common to find sheep on the farm today. Farming is different. The GLRC’s Lester Graham found some spring lambs… and a man who still thinks sheep have a place on the farm:
Transcript
Even if you didn’t grow up on a farm, springtime seems to bring with it
thoughts of baby chicks and spring lambs. But it’s not as common to
find sheep on the farm today. Farming is different. The GLRC’s Lester
Graham found some spring lambs… and a man who still thinks sheep
have a place on the farm:
(Sound of lambs)
It’s chilly and it’s raining outside, but nestled in the straw, three newborn
lambs are snuggling for a little warmth in the barn. George Good is milking
their mother – in farm parlance she’s called a ewe. He’s inserted her teat
directly into a green Mountain Dew bottle. After getting a little of the
ewe’s first milk, he holds the plastic bottle up to the light to see if he’s
got enough. Then he twists on a screw top nipple and picks up a
newborn lamb. It’s weak, kind of floppy, too wobbly to stand on its
own, but it eagerly takes the nipple and the first milk – called colostrum.
“I’m gonna give these lambs a little bit of supplement, you know, to get
them started, about two to three ounces of colostrum so they’ve got some
strength to get up and go. It’s really rich, high energy, and this ewe –
anything she’s immune to, the anti-bodies are in that first milk. So that
gives that lamb a boost to get off and is really healthy.”
Good is dressed to ward off the chill of the day… insulated overalls, stocking cap
and a pale blue kerchief around his neck. His easy going, warm way of
talking belies his quickness as he nimbly picks up another lamb to give it
a bit of the first milk.
Sheep used to be common on family farms. That’s when farming meant
a balance of different kinds of livestock, crops and income, but that’s
pretty rare these days… and this isn’t a family farm. George Good is the
farm manager at the Michigan State University Sheep Teaching and Research Center,
but Good himself was raised on one of those family farms.
“You know, they used to milk a few cows, have a few laying hens, and a
flock of ewes that they’d lamb in the spring, and lambing in the spring,
that’s a good time because it’s just before they go to the crop, to do the
field work, see?”
The lambs were born in the spring, just before it really got busy. Then,
after the crops were planted, it was time to shear the sheep. The wool
meant income that came at a pretty good time. Farming used to be all
about timing. After going all winter with little to sell, spring offered a
chance for some income. Selling lambs for meat, selling wool, and then
raising different livestock to sell at different times of the year. Farmers
would grow hay and wheat to bring in money during the summer, tiding
the family over until the corn crop came in during the fall and with it
more money.
“And I can remember a lot of people telling me – old farmers – that their
flock of sheep really kind of helped to make the farm payments. They
may not have been necessarily focused largely on the flock of sheep, but
it was something that fit in, that was compatible, you know.”
But, today farms usually are not that diverse. They specialize. Livestock
farms often raise just one kind of animal. Hog farms with tens of
thousands of pigs. Cattle farms that concentrate the animals in feedlots.
Or farms that don’t raise livestock at all, just crops. Modern farms
count on the efficiencies of mass production rather than the balance of
the cycles of nature and husbandry.
Good says even sheep farms have to raise hundreds of sheep to make
enough money to support a family, but Good says sheep are great if
they’re thought of as they once were on traditional farms… as a little
supplemental income.
“If you have a flock of sheep or a group of sheep it’s a great family
project. It’s something the wife and children can help, labor-wise, take
care of. They’re smaller. You got the wool crop. If you have some hilly
land or some rough area that you don’t farm, they graze it and you end
up with a nice product to sell. But, the family, the thing about sheep is
the family can really do a lot of the work, your children and your wife
and so on.”
Good notes that there’s been increased demand for lamb from growing
Middle-Eastern and Mediterranean populations in cities such as Detroit
and Toronto. Lamb prices are higher, making sheep worth the effort.
But then, Good seems to be partial to the animals. He gives you the
impression that nursing these lambs has to do with something more than
just profit and product. Maybe it’s just a reminder of how it used to be
on so many family farms.
For the Great Lakes Radio Consortium, this is Lester Graham.
Backyard composting isn't quite as inticing a hobby in the wintertime. (Photo by Karen Kelly)
Composting has always been a part of farm life, but a growing number of city folks are trying it as well. The GLRC’s Karen Kelly is one of those city dwellers. And she found if composting isn’t convenient, it doesn’t get done:
Transcript
Composting has always been a part of farm life, but a growing
number of city folks are trying it as well. The GLRC’s Karen
Kelly is one of those city dwellers, and she found if composting
isn’t convenient, it doesn’t get done:
“So we’re going to put in our banana peels, and the oatmeal that
nobody ate, and I’m going to break some of this up because apparently
it breaks down faster if it’s in smaller pieces. So right now we’ve got,
half a scone, a bowl of oatmeal, some banana peel… ”
It’s just after breakfast and my kitchen is covered with dirty dishes.
Some of the food is heading into the garbage, the rest I’m going
toss into the composter. It kind of looks like a brown garbage can
with a lid, but it takes about half my garbage and turns it back into
soil.
I started about a year ago, when I finally got a small backyard
where I live here in Ottawa, Canada’s capital city. First, I asked
my friends Connie and Dan how they do it.
“How would you guys describe your approach?”
“Laissez faire.”
“Yeah. It’s really a shame that everybody doesn’t do this because it can
be really easy. Just put it in a box and let it sit there.”
I liked the sound of that hands-off approach, but I was also
wondering what to put in and what I needed to leave out. So, I gave
George Reimer a call. He’s the city of Ottawa’s composting expert.
“ust stick with kitchen scraps, vegetables, fruit scraps…plants that
you have from the gardening season, that type of thing.”
“Okay, okay. So no animal products basically?”
“Exactly.”
Once you have a good mix of kitchen scraps, leaves and grass, the
best thing for compost is to mix it around on a regular basis. When
you add that oxygen to the microorganisms already in the garbage,
it breaks the waste down even faster.
It’s not as easy as it sounds – especially if you compost in a plastic
drum. Just imagine sticking a pitchfork into your garbage can and
trying to flip over a pile of wet dirt.
So, armed with that information, I asked George if he could take a
look at our progress after our first week of composting. He stooped
over to pull open a sliding door at the bottom of the container.
“Oh, you haven’t got anything in there, have you?”
“Well I did put some things in there…”
“Yeah, you need to put a slab down or dig it into the ground
because obviously something’s gone in there and removed it all.”
“Yeah, there’s no food in there. Okay. All right then. That was
a week’s worth of squirrel feeding.”
“Yeah exactly.”
(Sound of bricks laying)
So, the next day we go to a big box store to get some bricks. We
lay them all around the base of the composter. The squirrels are defeated.
A few weeks later, I see a huge raccoon shuffling across the backyard.
It knocks the top off the composter and climbs in.
We drive back to the big box store and buy some flat, heavy bricks
to lay on top of the lid. We also buy a few bags of fertilizer, of
course because we still have no compost. I think, this is starting to
feel like work and to be honest – I find it disgusting.
(Sound of brick noise)
“So now, it’s even more challenging to do this.”
(Sound of dumping)
“Ewww. A lot of it is sticking to the pot, which is disgusting but
alright. Uhh, brick back up, auxiliary bricks, okay.”
Now that I had to move those bricks, I was less likely to run out
with just the dinner scraps, and we weren’t mixing the compost very
often, either. So, I tried to remind myself of why I started doing this.
For one, it seemed like a shame to throw vegetable scraps into a
plastic bag and send them to a landfill. Especially when landfill
space is so tight that some Canadian cities are shipping their
garbage to the U.S.
Plus, we have a garden, which could use the nutrients from the
compost. According to George Reimer, those nutrients stick
around a lot longer than the ones found in commercial fertilizer.
I knew all that, and yet, on a stinking hot day in July – and the
composter was stinking because we rarely turned it – I officially
stopped. For a while… for six months. Until recently, when my
guilty conscience prodded me out the door with a bowl of kitchen
scraps.
(Sound of walking in snow)
“We’ve got snow on the ground and a bowl of fresh vegetable
scraps. Umm, interesting. It’s about a third full so there must be
compost under there somewhere.”
Last time I looked, the container had twice that amount in it.
Which makes me think that most of the food has broken down into
something we can finally use on the garden. It gives me an
incentive to start over. Plus, in a few years, I’ll have to compost.
Ottawa will join at least 18 other Canadian cities where residents
are required to throw food scraps into a separate container, and
hey, if all else fails, there’s nothing like a new law to get you
motivated.
The emerald ash borer is killing ash trees in Michigan, Ohio, Indiana and Ontario... and scientists say all the ash in North America is at risk if the beetle can't be stopped. (Photo courtesy of USFS)
Adult emerald ash borers lay eggs on the bark of ash trees. When the eggs hatch, the little larvae chew right through the bark and feast on the living tissue under the bark. The beetles cut off the tree's water and food supply. When the larvae become adults, they emerge from the tree, leaving a D-shaped exit hole.(Photo courtesy of the Michigan Department of
Agriculture)
The bark of an infested ash tree splits and pulls away from the tree. Chunks of bark can fall off the tree as it dies. (Photo courtesy of the Michigan Department of Agriculture)
A tiny green beetle is killing millions of ash trees. And so far nobody’s
found a way to stop it in its tracks. The GLRC’s Rebecca Williams reports cities and states are struggling to find money to keep the beetle from spreading:
Transcript
A tiny green beetle is killing millions of ash trees. And so far nobody’s
found a way to stop it in its tracks. The GLRC’s Rebecca Williams
reports cities and states are struggling to find money to keep the beetle
from spreading:
Once emerald ash borers chew their way into your ash trees, there’s
pretty much only one thing you can do.
(Sound of chainsaw and tree cracking and falling)
Crews here have been sawing down and chipping up trees six days a
week. In some places, crews are cutting down both dead and live trees.
Dead trees are a safety hazard. Cutting live trees near infested areas can
help contain the beetles.
The emerald ash borer is native to China. Scientists think it got in on
wood packing crates more than ten years ago. The emerald ash borer eats
through the living part of the tree just underneath the bark. The beetles
cut off the tree’s water and food supply… so it starves to death. 15
million ash trees are dead or dying in Michigan. Hundreds of thousands
are dying in Ohio, Indiana and Ontario, and it could spread to other states
soon.
Some cities have been hit really hard. For example, some of the trees in
Ann Arbor, Michigan have been dead for a couple of years. Kay
Sichenader is the city’s forester. She says she’s worried about limbs
breaking off trees, or bark falling off in 80 pound chunks.
“There’s some terrifically bad ones out there. Nothing will make me
happier than when those trees are down, I gotta tell you.”
This isn’t the first time cities have lost big shade trees. Dutch elm
disease almost wiped out American elms in the 1960’s and 70’s. It’s a
little ironic: people planted ash trees to replace the elms because they
thought ash trees were invincible.
That love of ash trees means cities are losing 20 or 30 percent of their
trees, and they’re spending millions of dollars to take trees out.
Forester Kay Sichenader says her city normally takes out a thousand old
trees a year. Now, she’s got ten times as many trees to cut down.
“If I never bumped it up, and we just remained with our thousand a year,
we would never change because it would take me ten years to get the ash
out. In the meantime I’d have 10,000 more dead trees to deal with. It’s
sobering.”
Sichenader says the city’s trying to get the dead ash trees out as fast as
they can. She’s contracted five extra crews to saw down trees. She
hopes they’ll be done by the end of the year, but it might be longer.
Many homeowners are getting impatient. They’re worried about big
branches falling on their cars or homes. Or worse, falling on their kids.
Laura Lee Hayes lives in a cul-de-sac with four infested ash trees. She
points out a big branch on her neighbor’s dead tree.
“This whole piece is just laying here, ready to pull off, and there are
small children that play in this yard. That’s why I look to my city to get
over here and get these trees down. There’s a real frightening aspect to
that.”
Hayes says she tried to pay to take the trees down herself, but she found
out it would’ve cost more than a thousand dollars.
In Indiana, homeowners now have to spend their own money to get rid of
dead trees in their yards. State officials say they can’t afford to keep
cutting down live ash trees to slow the infestation. The state won’t be
giving money to help cities cut down dead trees either. That could mean
the emerald ash borer will spread unchecked.
At first, the federal government sent states several million dollars to fight
the beetle, but now the money’s just trickling in. In 2004, Michigan
Governor Jennifer Granholm asked President Bush to declare the state a
federal disaster area. That request was denied. Recently, officials in
Ohio and Michigan said they’ll have to cut back on containing new
infestations.
These trends worry scientists.
Deb McCullough is a forest entomologist at Michigan State University.
She says states barely have enough money to monitor how far the beetle’s
spreading, and she says a lot more money’s needed for ad campaigns to
tell people to stop moving firewood. The beetle spreads fastest when
campers or hunters move infested wood.
“You have to look down the road, and either you spend millions of
dollars today to try to contain emerald ash borer or we’re going to be
looking at losses in the tens of billions of dollars in the future, and it’s not
too distant of a future.”
McCullough says if more funding doesn’t come in states might need to
have timber sales to take ash out before the beetle kills it. And cities will
still be paying millions of dollars to take out dead trees. That means
people who live in those cities might see cuts in other programs or have
to pay higher taxes.
Deb McCullough says the economic impacts are serious… but the
environmental impacts could be even worse. She says it’s hard to know
how wildlife might be affected if we continue to lose millions of ash
trees.
If you think your neighbor across the border sends too much garbage to your local landfill, you now have a songwriter on your side. The GLRC’s Chuck Quirmbach reports:
Transcript
If you think your neighbor across the border sends too much garbage to
your local landfill, you now have a songwriter on your side. The Great
Lakes Radio Consortium’s Chuck Quirmbach reports:
Some states are dumping grounds for trash from other states and from
Canada. The U.S. federal courts have ruled that the garbage hauling is
interstate commerce and have protected the practice, but that doesn’t
quiet a Wisconsin musician who lives near a fast growing landfill which
takes in trash from three states.
“Thank you for your generosity. Mountains full of garbage give us one
more place to ski.”
Kevin McMullin’s song urges the other states to just send cash instead of
trash, but many pro-business legislators in some states see trash as cash.
So, when environmentalists call for higher landfill dumping fees to try to
slow the amount of garbage… the lawmaker’s song remains the same –
they vote no.
Canadian Prime Minister Paul Martin’s Liberal party has gone down to defeat in the country’s national election. The Conservative party, under leader Stephen Harper, will form the next government. The Great Lakes Radio Consortium’s Dan Karpenchuk reports… there is some concern among environmental groups that Harper will pull out of the Kyoto Protocol:
Transcript
Canadian Prime Minister Paul Martin’s Liberal party has gone down to
defeat in the country’s national election. The Conservative party, under
leader Stephen Harper, will form the next government. The Great Lakes
Radio Consortium’s Dan Karpenchuk reports… there is some concern
among environmental groups that Harper will pull out of the Kyoto
Protocol:
Stephen Harper won the election by persuading voters it was time for a
change, but the fact that he was given only a thin minority, demonstrates
that Canadians aren’t completely sold on his policies, among them his
position on the Kyoto Accord to reduce heat trapping gases. Harper said
only days before the election that he will reconsider Canada’s position on
Kyoto.
“You know, I’ve said for a long time, we’re not going to be able to achieve
the Kyoto targets in Canada. That’s just a fact, I’m sorry we lost a decade
finding that out.”
Harper said he wants to move Canada beyond Kyoto and bring in his
own clean air act, but a coalition of social advocacy and citizens groups,
formed just before the election, said they had deep misgivings about a
Conservative victory.
At least one environmentalist said it would mean a complete reversal for
Canada, the end of its commitment to the Kyoto protocol, and bring
Ottawa closer in line with Washington’s policies on global warming.
Canada is a signatory of the Kyoto Protocol – an international agreement aimed at curbing heat trapping gas emissions. Now, a new study shows that these gas emissions have risen sharply in Canada over the past ten years. The release of the study comes just days after the prime minister criticized Washington for its climate change policies. The Great Lakes Radio Consortium’s Dan Karpenchuk reports:
Transcript
Canada is a signatory of the Kyoto Protocol – an international agreement
aimed at curbing heat trapping gas emissions. Now, a new study shows
that these gas emissions have risen sharply in Canada over the past ten
years. The release of the study comes just days after the Prime Minister
criticized Washington for its climate change policies. The Great Lakes
Radio Consortium’s Dan Karpenchuk reports:
The study was prepared by the Environment, Health and Statistics
departments of the Canadian government. It shows as of a couple of
years ago emissions of greenhouse gases were 32 percent above the
targets laid out in the Kyoto Protocol.
Alberta and Ontario had the worst emissions of all the provinces.
The study found that the most of the greenhouse gas emissions came
from energy production and consumption. Vehicular traffic accounted
for about twenty percent, an increase reflected in the shift from
automobiles to vans, SUV’s and trucks. Those heavier vehicles emit
about 40 percent more greenhouse gasses on average.
Climate change has become a touchy issue between Ottawa and
Washington. Recently, Prime minister Paul Martin said the White House
had failed to yield to a global conscience in its refusal to sign the Kyoto
Protocol. Washington warned him to tone down his anti-US rhetoric,
describing it as cheap electioneering.
Illinois Congressman Mark Kirk, Ohio Governor Bob Taft, EPA Administrator Stephen L. Johnson, and Chicago Mayor Richard M. Daley. This was right taken after they signed the agreement. (Photo by Shawn Allee)
In the spring of 2004, President Bush created a task force to develop a comprehensive Great Lakes restoration plan. The group recently released its final recommendations. But members already disagree about the future of their proposal. The Great Lakes Radio Consortium’s Shawn Allee reports:
Transcript
In April 2004, President George Bush created a task force to develop a
comprehensive Great Lakes restoration plan. The group recently
released its recommendations, but members already disagree about the
future of their proposal. The Great Lakes Radio Consortium’s Shawn
Allee reports:
Efforts to improve the Great Lakes face a major hurdle. Local, state and
federal programs overlap and sometimes duplicate one another. That
wastes a lot of time and money. President Bush wanted to change this. So, he
created a task force called the Great Lakes Regional Collaboration. For the
first time, cities, states, federal agencies, and Indian tribes would agree to
specific goals and how to reach them. By most accounts they succeeded.
Here’s Chicago Mayor Richard M. Daley.
“I can’t overstate what a major step forward this is for the Great Lakes.
For the first time, we’re all the same page with a common vision.”
The parties agreed to eight major goals. Among other things, they want
to restore wetlands along Great Lakes shorelines, they want to clean up
heavy metals that pollute lakebeds, and they want to keep sewage away
from public beaches. The cost for all this would stand at billions of
dollars, and that price tag caused a major rift.
Bush administration officials agreed to spend 300 million additional
dollars per year. That’s just a fraction of what states and environmental
groups hoped for.
Derek Stack is with Great Lakes United, an advocacy group. He says
states want to participate, but sometimes they can’t.
“I think a lot of the states simply don’t have the dollars necessary to pull
it off.”
Tribes, cities and states are being careful with their criticism. They want
to keep the door open for the administration to change its mind.
“To be fair to the federal administration, the states are saying we don’t
have federal money, and the feds are pointing out that we don’t exactly
have state money either, but the states have committed themselves to the
plan. So, now that they know what they’ve committed themselves to, the
budget building can begin. It’s hard to build a budget if you don’t have a
plan.”
Some critics are more strident, though. Illinois Congressman Rahm
Emmanuel says the administration needs this clear message. Federal
leadership requires federal money.
“There’s either action or inaction. This is the ninth report in five years,
and I hope it’s the last report. Now, there’s nothing that can’t be cured when
it comes to the Great Lakes that resources can’t take care of.”
Great Lakes advocates and state governments will be watching the next
few months closely.
Cameron Davis directs the Alliance for the Great Lakes. He says he’s
reserving judgment until the President releases a budget proposal.
“That budget will be released the first week of February, and if it has 300
million dollars in new funding, then we’ll know that the administration’s
serious. If it doesn’t we need to ask Congress to step in.”
Some legislators say that deadline might be too soon to judge the
ultimate success of the restoration plan.
Illinois Congressman Mark Kirk says other federal cleanup efforts came
after several reports and years of waiting. Congressman Kirk says the
prospects for the restoration plan are good. The Great Lakes region has
the strength of eight states standing behind it.
“When you look at the success of the Chesapeake Bay, and then the success
of protecting the Everglades, you see, once you come together with a
common vision, what a unified part of state delegation or in the case of
Florida, what an entire state delegation can do.”
On the other hand, it might be hard to keep eight state governments
focused on a common purpose.
There’s another wrinkle in the restoration plan as well. Canada lies on the other
side of the Great Lakes, and any comprehensive plan will require its
cooperation as well.
A juvenile lake sturgeon. (Photo courtesy of USFS, Rob Elliott)
Biologists have been concerned about a number of native species that
have been disappearing. One of them is the largest fish in the Great
Lakes. Over-fishing and gravel mining in riverbeds have wiped out 99-
percent of the population of lake sturgeon. Sturgeon used to be common
throughout the Great Lakes, but they’re a rare sight these days. Celeste
Headlee reports… biologists are trying to save some of the sturgeon’s
spawning grounds:
Transcript
We’ve been bringing you reports from the Great Lakes Radio
Consortium’s series ‘Ten Threats to the Great Lakes.’ Lester Graham is
our guide through the series. He says our next report is about an ancient
fish that’s been disappearing.
Biologists have been concerned about a number of native species that
have been disappearing. One of them is the largest fish in the Great
Lakes. Over-fishing and gravel mining in riverbeds have wiped out 99-
percent of the population of lake sturgeon. Sturgeon used to be common
throughout the Great Lakes, but they’re a rare sight these days. Celeste
Headlee reports… biologists are trying to save some of the sturgeon’s
spawning grounds:
(Sound of the lake)
Sturgeon are the largest fish in the Great Lakes. The grayish brown
creatures can grow up to seven feet long, and weigh more than 200
pounds. Sturgeon have been on Earth for 100 million years, and they’ve
remained essentially unchanged in all that time. Instead of scales, the
fish have an almost leathery skin with five rows of bony plates running
along their torpedo-shaped bodies.
Fish biologist Bruce Manny says sturgeon were once abundant in the
Great Lakes. Back in 1880, in one month’s time, fishermen pulled four
thousand of them from the Detroit River.
“They tore holes in their nets when they were fishing for other fish that
they cared about. So, when they found a sturgeon in their nets, they
would kill them, bring them to the shore, pile them up on shore, dry them
out and use them for fuel in the steamships. Burn them up.”
Most of the time, the creatures were caught and killed while fisherman
angled for more valuable fish. Scientists think over fishing has caused
sturgeon populations in all of the Great Lakes to dwindle to less than one
percent of their former number.
The state of Michigan closed the Detroit River to sturgeon-fishing years
ago. Bruce Manny says he decided to check on the sturgeon and see if
the fish population had started to recover.
Manny assembled a team of biologists from the U.S. Geological Survey.
He says he was surprised when his team caught only 86 fish over the
course of four years. Manny says he realized the sturgeon were in
serious trouble.
USGS scientists followed the tagged fish for two years, and their
patience was eventually rewarded. Manny found the first known
spawning site ever documented in Detroit River in modern times.
“We were excited all right. Eureka moment. I mean this is like a very,
very great coincidence that we were able to find these spawning ready
males, and they were able to find a female. When there are only 86 fish
caught in four years out here, there aren’t that many around. So, to find
someone to spawn with is a real challenge, I would say.”
The area where the sturgeon mated lies close to a sewer discharge pipe.
There are limp, brown grasses bordering grey, mucky water. Manny sent
divers down and discovered the fish had actually produced fertilized
eggs. Manny says this was a major step forward for his project.
Sturgeon are pretty picky about their nesting sites. They need a fast
moving current and several layers of rock where eggs rest safely. The
problem is a lot of the gravel has been mined out of the Detroit River for
use in construction.
Another problem is the sturgeons’ long life. Fish biologist Ron Bruch is
in Wisconsin. He oversees sturgeon populations in Wisconsin’s
Winnebago river system. He says female sturgeons live more than 100
years and they don’t spawn until they are at least 20 years old.
“Their life history works well for a long-lived species, but it doesn’t
work well for a species that’s exploited heavily. So, sturgeon can only
tolerate very low exploitation rates, and when that exploitation is high
the populations collapse.”
Wisconsin was the first state in the U.S. to create a sturgeon management
program more than 100 years ago, and the fish are more abundant there.
Biologists in Michigan monitored the nesting sites in the Detroit River
this spring. Eight species of fish used the beds, including popular sport
fish like yellow perch and walleye. Only two sturgeon came by the sites,
but they weren’t ready to spawn.
Ron Bruch says biologists will have to create a lot more spawning sites
like the ones in the Detroit River before the sturgeon population is firmly
reestablished in the Great Lakes.
“In and of itself, it’s not going to restore all of Lake Erie or all the Great
Lakes, but it’s a shining example of what can be done in many areas
around the Great Lakes to help produce Lake Sturgeon spawning habitat
and rehabilitate the Lake Sturgeon population.”
USGS biologists will go back to the nesting sites next spring. They say it may
take years for sturgeon to notice the small beds in the 32-mile river.
One important development, though, is a change of policy from the
Ontario Ministry of Natural Resources. Canadians used to allow
fisherman to take one sturgeon a day out of the river. Now, it’s illegal to
possess one of the endangered fish on both sides of the channel.
Canadian officials say they’ve been vindicated after the U.S. commerce department recently announced it would drastically cut duties on imports of Canadian softwood lumber. But the U.S. hasn’t entirely given in. And as the Great Lakes Radio Consortium’s Dan Karpenchuk reports, it’s now become an issue in Canada’s national election:
Transcript
Canadian officials say they’ve been vindicated after the U.S. commerce department
recently announced it would drastically cut duties on imports of Canadian softwood
lumber, but the U.S. hasn’t entirely given in, and as Dan Karpenchuk reports, it’s now
become an issue in Canada’s national election:
Just before a NAFTA deadline, the U.S. commerce department said it would cut duties on
Canadian softwood from just under 19 percent to just under one percent, but it also said
even though it was complying it doesn’t agree and adds that the case is not final.
Since 2002 the U.S. has collected more than 3-and-a-half billion dollars in duties. Duties,
which the Canadians say are illegal, and want returned.
Canadian Prime Minister Paul Martin in launching his election campaign this week
lambasted his main opponent, Conservative leader Stephen Harper, on the issue.
“He has been silent, he has been silent as we have defended Canadian workers against the
Americans on softwood lumber, such a vital issue, and yet Stephen Harper has had
nothing to say.”
Washington has said it wants a negotiated settlement, but with NAFTA ruling five times
in Canada’s favor and thousands of jobs lost in the country’s forestry industry the mood
north of the border appears uncompromising.
