Echo

Submit your Great Lakes Horror Headlines here

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Sometimes the environmental news at Echo can be terrifying – or at least extremely gross. With tongue in cheek and in honor of Halloween, today we’re asking you to conceive of Great Lakes horror headlines. You’ve got plenty of fodder: Slimey green algae, blood-sucking  sea lamprey, giant leaping carp. Some examples to get you started:

The attack of the bloody red shrimp
The e.coli that ate the beach
It came for our water
The case of the disappearing diporeia
The storm sewer that swallowed Chicago

But you can do better. Show us in the comments section below.

Echo

Cougar verified in Wisconsin

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Another cougar was photographed by a trail camera earlier this month in the Great Lakes region – this time in Juneau County, Wisc. Wisconsin Department of Natural Resources biologists confirmed the presence of four cougars over the last three years, and seven trail cameras have documented cougar activity in the state according to a press release from the Department. Biologists believe most of these cougars are from South Dakota, making their way through Wisconsin to find territory and mates. Who knows, maybe they’ll end up in the Upper Peninsula.  

Echo

High speed trip from Duluth to Lake Ontario’s outlet

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Here’s a way to get from the western end of Lake Superior to the eastern end of Lake Ontario in a scant 14 minutes. This Great Lakes Tour created by the Great Lakes Environmental Research Laboratory is more than a video. The tour makes 20 stops while rattling off Great Lakes factoids about size, ecosystems and environmental threats.  You’ll go scuba diving, see a ship leaving the Soo Locks, a sinkhole and more. Pause the tour and you can click and drag the image to peek at any place in the world. Push the play button to get back to the Great Lakes.

Echo

Scientists head to D.C. with mercury findings

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Scientists are in Washington D.C. today to present to federal lawmakers research suggesting the Great Lakes region has more problems with mercury than previously thought. Their visit comes just weeks after the GOP-led House of Representative passed two bills that would handcuff the EPA from limiting mercury emissions. As Echo reported, scientists reviewed research on mercury in the Great Lakes region and found despite overall decreases in the pollutant, concentrations are rising in some species and health risks are occurring at lower levels than expected. The new report, published by the Biodiversity Research Institute in the academic journal Ecotoxicology and the journal Environmental Pollution, summarizes the findings of more than 170 scientists, researchers and resource managers.  The report is a collaboration of the Biodiversity Research Institute, the Great Lakes Commission and the University of Wisconsin-La Crosse.