Fifteen more endangered whooping cranes are are following ultralight aircraft through the Midwest, on the way to Florida. It’s part of an experiment to create a migrating flock of the birds in the Eastern U.S. The Great Lakes Radio Consortium’s Chuck Quirmbach reports:
Transcript
Fifteen more endangered whooping cranes are about to follow ultralight aircraft
through the
Midwest, on the way to Florida. It’s part of an experiment to create a migrating
flock of the birds
in the Eastern U.S. The Great Lakes Radio Consortium’s Chuck Quirmbach reports:
This is the third year that pilots wearing cranelike costumes are leading a flock of
young
whooping cranes on the birds first southerly migration from Wisconsin. About twenty
cranes
now migrate on their own. A public-private partnership is trying to create a flock
of 125
whoopers, including two dozen breeding pairs.
Larry Wargowsky is the manager at the Necedah National Wildlife Refuge, which is the
starting
point of the birds flight. He says it’s important to keep building the numbers of
young cranes
because it takes 4 to 7 years for them to mature.
“If it takes that long, there’s a chance of birds having fatalities. They hit power
lines, always
disease, parasites, injuries of some sort. So you need more birds.”
The only other migrating flock of whooping cranes travels between Canada and Texas.
For the Great Lakes Radio Consortium, this is Chuck Quirmbach.
It’s that time of year again, when those who winter in warm, southern climates travel north for the summer. But for many birds, land development and habitat destruction are making migration an uncertain proposition. Some groups in the United States, Canada, and Central America are working together to protect land for the birds. The Great Lakes Radio Consortium’s Julie Grant reports:
Transcript
It’s that time of year again, when those who winter in warm, southern climates travel north for the
summer. But for many birds, land development and habitat destruction are making
migration an uncertain proposition. Some groups in the United States, Canada, and Central America
are working together to protect land for the birds. The Great Lakes Radio Consortium’s Julie Grant reports:
(sound…birding in the rain…)
It’s 6 A.M. It’s still dark outside. And it’s raining. But Rob
Tymstra and Darrell Parsons are
hiking in the woodlands of Pelee
Island, in Western Lake Erie, on the
lookout for birds.
They’ve seen all kinds of warblers,
and herons, even a bald eagle.
They’re trying to spot as many
species as possible in one day as
part of the Pelee Island Birdathon.
They’ve seen or heard more
than 104 species since noon
yesterday, which seems like a lot, but
they’re
competing against six other teams
from the U.S. and Canada for who
can spot the most bird
species.
“Uh oh, those are the Ottawa people,
our other competitors.”
Tymstra and Parsons are in this
contest to win. But they say the
Birdathon is really just for fun and to
raise money for the Audubon Society.
Both men are in their 40’s and have
been birding since
they were teenagers. They’ve got
lists of birds they hope to see in their
lives and have traveled
the world, most recently, to Brazil,
Panama, and Thailand, in search of
them.
“Pelee Island compares really
favorably with the whole area. Point
Pelee National Park, just
north of us, is world famous for birds,
especially in spring migration. But all
these islands here in
Lake Erie are stepping stones as the
birds are traveling north.”
The next stepping stone for many
birds is Point Pelee National Park,
which gets a lot more
attention. But Tymstra likes to take
the ferry to Pelee Island because it’s
less crowded.
“So here we get as many birds or
more birds as Point Pelee, but we
don’t have the crowds. On a
busy day there in May you might get
10,000 people, but here you’re lucky
to see a dozen people.
So the birds here actually outnumber
the people.”
(unveiling of sign)
“Pull from that end, gentlemen.
Everybody got their cameras ready?
Okay, ta-da!”
(clapping)
The unveiling of this sign marks the
significance of a natural habitat that’s
been preserved on
Pelee. Most residents of this
Canadian island want the birds,
butterflies and other wildlife to
continue to outnumber the humans.
So, they’ve recruited organizations
such as the Nature
Conservancy, the Federation of
Ontario Naturalists, and others to
preserve and restore the habitat.
Ric Wellwood coordinates a coalition
of conservation groups concerned
about development in
southern Canada.
“The difficulty we had was that twenty
years ago we realized that this
paradise we were living in
was getting crunched. Intensive
agriculture hurt for awhile, but it’s
eased off. But urban sprawl
is going like crazy. Urban sprawl is
taking away habitat. Our birdies
are not finding as welcome
a time as they used when they were
coming up here from Central
America and Mexico and
South
America and the southern U.S.”
A yellow-breasted chat or a wood
thrush might spend its winter in
Central America, then make the
long trek to Canada for the summer.
Field biologist Larry Roche tracks
birds in the Great Lakes
region.
“That’s a tough life – migratory birds.
You can go to Belize, and/or Mexico,
and go out to the
Yucatan, and watch them leave the
Yucatan in the evening and they fly
somewhat eighteen hours
across the Gulf of Mexico and they
land on the upper Texas coast. And
then they leave that area
and go hopscotching all the way to
wherever they want to go. Some of
these birds come from
Argentina and go all the way to the
Arctic. It’s pretty stunning for a land
bird to do that.”
These tiny creatures can be exhausted
by the time they get to the shore of
Lake Erie. The Nature
Conservancy in Canada and Ohio
are trying to protect land here to
make sure there’s a place for
the birds to make a pit stop, or to
nest and raise their young. But the
North American
conservationists are concerned that
poorer Central American countries
are allowing bird habitats
to be destroyed. Those countries
need the money developers are
offering for the rainforest
timber.
A report from the WorldWatch
Institute says bird species today face
a wave of extinction not seen
since dinosaurs died out. Twelve
percent of the world’s bird species
are considered to be at risk
of extinction and habitat loss is the
single greatest threat to birds.
Some environmental groups are not
only protecting land here, but also in
Central and South
America. To do that, Randy Edwards
of the Ohio Nature Conservancy says
they’re buying land
in Belize.
“Because there are more then sixty
species of birds from herons to
songbirds, warblers, etc, that
overwinter in Belize and elsewhere in
Central America and then come to
Ohio and places north
to make their nests and raise their
young. And the birds that we see
here, and that we enjoy in the
spring and the summer spend time in
Belize, so we need to protect habitat
here in Ohio and
Canada and Belize, all along their
migratory route, or they won’t be
here anymore.”
The Ohio Nature Conservancy was
part of a debt for nature swap in
Belize. In total, the U.S.
provided five and a half million dollars
to Belize for the preservation of
23,000 acres of forest in
the Maya mountain-marine corridor.
It’s a small but significant step to
ensure that birders Rob
Tymstra and Darrell parsons can try
again next year on Pelee Island.
(winners announced)
They lost by one bird species to their
arch rivals from Ottawa.
For the Great Lakes Radio
Consortium, I’m Julie Grant in Ohio.
Biologists from seven countries are banding together to protect a large, ancient fish. Earlier this month, scientists launched what they call the “World Sturgeon Conservation Society.” The Great Lakes Radio Consortium’s Patty Murray has more:
Transcript
Biologists from seven countries are banding together to protect a large,
ancient fish. Earlier this month/last month (March) scientists launched what they
call the “World Sturgeon Conservation Society.” The Great Lakes Radio
Consortium’s Patty Murray has more:
Sturgeon are among the oldest fishes in the world. They’ve been around
since the pre-historic era.
But modern pressures are testing the fish. That’s why sturgeon biologists
recently formed the “World Sturgeon Conservation Society.”
Ron Bruch is a sturgeon biologist with the Wisconsin Department of Natural
Resources.
He says North American sturgeon stocks are fairly healthy. But Bruch says
that’s not the case in the Caspian and Black seas where the fish often wind
up on the illegal caviar market.
“The stocks there are on track to collapse in the next 15-20 years because
of poaching, problems with habitat and pollution. There’s a real need in
the sturgeon community for international help to pull that situation out
before it’s beyond repair.”
Bruch says members of the World Sturgeon Conservation Society will share
research that can help reduce illegal sturgeon harvest. One idea is to
raise sturgeon on aquaculture farms to offset the need for black market
caviar.
For the Great Lakes Radio Consortium, I’m Patty Murray.
Michigan researchers are searching rivers and lakes for evidence
of the native Purple Lilliput (pictured
above). Photo by Doug Sweet.
In recent years, a great deal of attention has been focused on zebra mussels. They’re not native to the Great Lakes region and they’re pushing native mussels out of local lakes and streams. As the Great Lakes Radio Consortium’s Celeste Headlee reports, one scientist at a Detroit Aquarium has taken on the daunting task of trying to save a small, rare native mussel from disappearing in the state:
Transcript
In recent years, a great deal of attention has been focused on
zebra mussels. They’re not native to the Great Lakes region
and they’re pushing native mussels out of local lakes and streams.
As the Great Lakes Radio Consortium’s Celeste
Headlee reports, one scientist at a Detroit Aquarium has taken
on the daunting task of trying to save a small, rare native
mussel from disappearing in the state:
(ambient sound throughout – whenever Doug Sweet talks)
At a small pond near a highway, biologist Doug Sweet and his team put on waders and wet suits
and prepare to enter the sluggish brown water of Dawson’s Millpond Outlet in Pontiac. All
summer long, Sweet has made the trip from the Belle Isle Aquarium to this small pond looking
for a creature called the Purple Lilliput. These mussels, native to the Great Lakes area, have been
struggling to survive in Michigan, especially since the arrival of Zebra Mussels. Sweet’s made it
his mission to find out if there are any of these Lilliputs in Michigan still alive.
“I was very skeptical and didn’t know if we would find any live ones left because previous
surveyors were beginning to predict that they were gone. No one has found them for several
years.”
Zebra Mussels have been in the Clinton River for six or seven years. Zebras are very competitive
feeders. They strip the food out of the water before the native species can get it. Their presence
in domestic waters has had a catastrophic effect on many species. In fact, because of Zebra
Mussels and other factors like pollution, almost a third of North America’s freshwater mussels are
considered endangered or threatened with extinction.
Doug Sweet says Dawson’s Millpond Outlet is the last place to find Purple Lilliput mussels in
Michigan, and he’s afraid they will die out here, too.
“Looks like mostly all dead Purple Lilliputs. Yup.”
So far, Sweet and his team have found nine live Lilliputs. And that means there are probably
between 100 and 150 of them in that location. Though no one knows how long Purple Lilliputs
live, Sweet says other kinds of lilliput mussels live only about eight years.
“If the Purple Lilliputs are anything similar to that, then we’re running out of time because the
zebra mussels have been here for about six years now. And if they’re not reproducing, if there’s
too much competition, then we might be seeing the very last of the adult live Purple Lilliputs.”
When Sweet moved to the area, zebra mussels were starting to move into the Great Lakes region.
He’s a fish biologist, but he became so concerned about the plight of native mussels, he decided to
find out how they were faring. He contacted other biologists to ask what studies had been done.
Just a few years earlier, Oakland University Biology Professor Doug Hunter started looking for
the Purple Lilliput mussel in several lakes and streams around southeastern Michigan. During his
first few surveys, Hunter found more than 20 Lilliputs, but eventually he gave up hope and
assumed that the small creature was destined to die out in the state.
“Every year we went back after those first couple of fairly successful years, we got fewer and
fewer. The last time I went out there I think I got one or two. And I thought, “Well, this doesn’t
look good at all.” I wrote a report to the Wildlife Division in which I said, “I think this is an
imperiled population that may be on its way to local extinction.”
Doug Sweet picked up the research where Hunter left off and is now focusing his efforts on
trying to save the Purple Lilliput. Sweet says the number of lakes and streams in Michigan where
Zebra Mussels have taken hold is almost doubling every year. He says people should realize that
what they do with their boats affects an entire ecosystem.
“People are responsible for spreading the Zebra mussels all over the place. Everybody who has
Waverunners, boats, fishermen with bait buckets… they have to be conscientious that if they’re
fishing in one lake, you’ve got to clean your boat well before you transfer it to another lake or
stream.”
But even so, it may be too late for the Purple Lilliput. Sweet and his team snorkel through the
murky water, use glass bottom buckets, or dig their fingers into the black sediment, looking for
surviving buried mussels. Eventually, though, the hard work does pay off.
“A live one? Ooh, we think we have another live Purple Lilliput…
There we have it, another live one, ten, so this revises our population estimate right there, because
we found this in a quadrat excavation… This is excellent; it’s exciting. You know, who could say
that you’d get excited over a little critter like that.”
Later the same day, the team finds another live Purple Lilliput, a male, bringing the grand total up
to 11. Sweet hopes he can find a safe haven for the Lilliputs somewhere in southeastern
Michigan where the tiny population can slowly begin to recover. Doug Sweet is now finishing up
his fieldwork, and will soon begin studying his results for a report to the state.
For the Great Lakes Radio Consortium, I’m Celeste Headlee.
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.
For many years, state and federal wildlife officials have considered the cougar extinct in the Great Lakes region. However, many people claim to have seen the large predatory cat long after it supposedly disappeared. Conservationists debate whether these sightings are real and if they are, they wonder whether the cougars are wild or merely escaped pets. Investigations are underway in many states, including Minnesota, Wisconsin and Pennsylvania, and in Canada. Now, a wildlife biologist in Michigan says he has proof that a breeding population of wild cougars is living in the Upper Peninsula. The Great Lakes Radio Consortium’s Gretchen Millich reports:
Sturgeon are one of the oldest vertebrates on earth. The giant fish have survived for more than 150 million years. But encroachment by humans, and in some cases poaching, have decimated the fish in many areas, including the Great Lakes. Now the sturgeon is on the brink of extinction. That’s why hundreds of scientists from around the world came to Oshkosh, Wisconsin recently. As the Great Lakes Radio Consortium’s Patty Murray reports, they came to witness a sturgeon success story:
Transcript
Sturgeon are one of the oldest vertebrates on earth. The giant fish have survived for more than one hundred fifty million years. But encroachments by humans, and in some cases, poaching, have decimated the fish in many areas including the Great Lakes. Now the sturgeon is near the brink of extinction. That’s why hundreds of scientists from around the world came to Oshkosh, Wisconsin recently. As the Great Lakes Radio Consortium’s Patty Murray reports, they came to witness a sturgeon success story.
The sturgeon is a really big fish. It can grow six feet long and weigh as much as two hundred pounds. Because of its size it faces few challenges from any other animal, except says Ron Bruch, from humans. Bruch is a fishery biologist with the Wisconsin Department of Natural Resources. He says most of the twenty-five species of sturgeon found around the world are in trouble, including those living in the lakes here. Years ago, he says the Great Lakes used to be full of sturgeon, but European settlers didn’t like them because they tore up fishing nets.
“Nets were very expensive back then they didn’t have the fancy nylon twine and all the other equipment we have today. So these big fish would get into the nets and rip them up so they didn’t like sturgeon. So they’d just kill the sturgeon, stack them up just to get rid of them. Then they found out the fish had caviar and there was a market for caviar.”
And that meant the sturgeon began facing another threat. Today, a pint of caviar can bring as much as six hundred dollars. That’s enough money to bring out poachers.
(Sound of boat on river)
So with the sturgeon population in rapid decline, scientists are eager to find ways to save those fish that remain. That’s why many of them came to Wisconsin this summer. While most of the sturgeon population in the Great Lakes has long since disappeared, some of the fish still survive here. So scientists gathered on the banks of the Wolf River to watch as DNR wardens plucked a few of the big fish out of the water.
(Natural sounds)
Wisconsin’s Lake sturgeon population is considered to be the healthiest on earth. Sturgeon experts’ say that is because of a strong, two-pronged effort by state officials. First, they have a monitoring program. Many of the sturgeon are fitted with radio monitoring chips to keep track of how each fish is growing and where it is living.
(Sound of measuring, checking for chips)
Then, to make sure the fish remain safe, game wardens regularly patrol for poachers, and volunteers guard riverbanks during spawning season. That’s when the fish are the most vulnerable because they float close to the surface and can be easily speared. But despite these efforts, the state’s sturgeon population still holds a threatened status. Most of the fish live in the Wisconsin’s inland lakes and rivers, while very few remain in Lake Michigan, and it’s that fact which prompted a very unusual donation. An Italian count recently visited Wisconsin and learned of the fish’s decline, so he has donated two thousand dollars to study how to strengthen the population. The count’s money will pay researchers to go into Lake Michigan and Green Bay to see how many fish are left. They’ll also look at what obstacles may block restocking efforts.
Scientists hope what they learn in Lake Michigan can be applied to the rest of the Great Lakes. The money may also help fish elsewhere in the world. The count sent a team of Italian scientists to spend a week shadowing Wisconsin researchers. Darren McKenzie is an English scientist working with the Italians on preserving sturgeon in the Po River.
“Well I hope we can learn a few things about the techniques they use particularly with radio tracking and population issues. Because probably the Wisconsin lake sturgeon rehabilitation management thing, whatever it is called, is one of the best in the world for monitoring sturgeon population.”
For many of the foreign scientists, the importance of the sturgeon was brought home by a visit to a Northern Wisconsin Indian Reservation.
“Welcome to the Menominee tribal reservation. The way we look at it you’re people of the sturgeon just like we are-concerned about the sturgeon.”
For the Menominee, the sturgeon is more than just unusual looking and good tasting. The tribe’s relationship with the sturgeon goes back ten thousand years to the Menominee creation story. Before European settlers came along, the tribe relied on the fish for food and fuel. Then, in the 1890’s a dam went up downstream that stopped the sturgeon from swimming to a traditional spawning ground on Menominee land. Back then, tribal historian David Grignon says, the federal government would not let the Indians go off the reservation to spear sturgeon.
“It was denying us of a resource that we’d had for centuries. You know it was probably like the buffalo to the plains…. a way of life was gone, wouldn’t return anymore.”
But the fish are returning, since they can’t swim to the reservation anymore, the tribe is trucking them in. It is a long-term project. Sturgeon don’t mate until they’re at least twenty-five years old, so some tribal members won’t live long enough to know if their efforts have paid off. But if the tribe’s project and others like it are successful, then humans may claim credit for saving the fish once almost pushed to extinction. For the Great Lakes Radio Consortium, I’m Patty Murray in Green Bay, Wisconsin.
More than 1,300 U.S. and Canadian scientists are asking the Canadian government to strengthen proposed legislation that would protect endangered species. The Great Lakes Radio Consortium’s Karen Kelly explains:
Transcript
More than 13 hundred U.S. and Canadian scientists are asking the Canadian government to strengthen proposed legislation that would protect endangered species. The Great Lakes Radio Consortium’s Karen Kelly reports.
Right now, endangered species in Canada have no federal protection. The new Species at Risk Act would make it illegal for people to kill the 3 hundred 80 plants and animals considered at risk. But unlike the American law, the proposal does not guarantee that the land or waters in which these animals live will be protected from development. University of Ottawa biology professor David Currie says that’s led to a protest among scientists.
“Virtually all of the studies that have been done on the reasons why species become endangered or go extinct have shown that at least some aspect of habitat loss is involved and in many of the most dramatic cases of extinction, species’ habitats have been simply been entirely wiped out.”
The government’s environment committee will consider amendments to the bill in October. For the Great Lakes Radio Consortium, I’m Karen Kelly.
Peter Raven is the director of the Missouri Botanical Garden. More than
that, Raven is a world-leader in the effort to classify, understand, and use
plants in a sustainable fashion.
Recently Time Magazine labeled Peter Raven one of the "Heroes of the Planet"
for his work in understanding plants and the environment. Raven is the
director of the Missouri Botanical Garden. In the first installment of a
three-part interview at the botanical garden, the Great Lakes Radio
Consortium’s Lester Graham talked with Peter Raven about his conclusion that
we’re facing a mass extinction of species:
From a bird blind, Ronald Westemeier observes Greater Prairie Chickens on the booming ground. He spent his career trying to save the bird in Illinois.
The Greater Prairie Chicken used to live in the grasslands of nearly all the Great Lakes States. Now it's limited to a few areas. (photo courtesy Illinois DNR)
The Greater Prairie Chicken was once common throughout the Great Lakes
region, but now it’s disappeared from states like Pennsylvania, Ohio,
and Indiana. While some flocks have survived in Minnesota and
Wisconsin, Prairie Chickens in Illinois are in trouble. Several
management plans have failed and now conservationists are actively
working to save the few remaining birds. The Great Lakes Radio
Consortium’s Lester Graham has the story:
