Officials say a disease might be killing an invasive species of fish in Lake Ontario and the St. Lawrence River. The GLRC’s David Sommerstein reports:
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Officials say a disease might be killing an invasive species of fish in Lake
Ontario and the St. Lawrence River. The GLRC’s David Sommerstein
reports.
Where the lake and the river meet, people have been finding dead round
gobies.
“Dozens in some cases, hundreds of dead gobies that have been washing up on shores.”
Steve Litwiler is with New York’s Department of Environmental
Conservation. He says a change in water temperature or a poison could
cause the die-off, but initial sampling suggests some kind of disease.
“Is it a disease that could potentially affect other fish? Fortunately right
now the only fish that are dying appear to be the round gobies.”
If only the round gobies die, this could be a good news story. Round gobies
hitched a ride from Europe in the ballast of foreign freighters. They’ve
displaced native species across the Great Lakes by breeding faster and eating
other fishes’ eggs and young.
Great Lakes scientists are using new technology to track certain kinds of fish. The Great Lakes Radio Consortium’s Jonathan Ahl reports:
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Great Lakes scientists are using new technology to track certain kinds of fish. The Great Lakes Radio Consortium’s Jonathan Ahl reports:
Researchers on lakes Huron and Superior are using a new computerized tagging system to track fish including trout and sturgeon. The new tag measures the water depth and temperature of the areas fish prefer to be. Henry Quinlin is a biologist with the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service in Ashland, Wisconsin:
“Upon learning the habitat preferences, habitat could be enhanced or created to benefit lake sturgeon or the other species that are being studied.”
Quinlin hopes the data can be used to design better habitat protection and restoration projects. He also says the program’s success is dependent on sport fisherman returning the tagged fish. That’s why his office is paying one hundred dollars a piece for fish with the special tags. For the Great Lakes Radio Consortium, I’m Jonathan Ahl.
The Coast Guard says because of the mild winter a lot of people are still kayaking and boating on the water. That’s why it’s warning boaters to remember how cold the water is, even on a warm day. The Great Lakes Radio Consortium’s Lester Graham reports:
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The Coast Guard says because of the mild winter a lot of people are still kayaking and boating on the water. That’s why it’s warning boaters to remember how cold the water is even on a warm day. The Great Lakes Radio Consortium’s Lester Graham reports.
Even if the temperature reaches into the 60’s, the water is colder, cold enough to cause hypothermia in a couple of minutes. Coast Guard Chief Petty Officer Adam Wine says people fishing or hunting, or those kayaking or even out on jet-skis and the like should dress properly.
“If you’re going to go out on the water this time of year, you should be wearing a personal flotation device that is basically like a suit. It should be similar to either a dry suit or an exposure suit.”
Chief Wine says the personal flotation device suits are about the same price as thermal gear people buy for skiing and snowmobiling, but a lot more safe.
“You know, the thermal gear will drag you right to the bottom, whereas the exposure suit is going to save your life.”
The Coast Guard says if you find yourself in the water the first concern is simple, get out as fast as possible and get help.
For the Great Lakes Radio Consortium, I’m Lester Graham.
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:
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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.
