Brian Bienkowski | Great Lakes Echo

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Everything a birder wants to know about Lake Erie’s shoreline

By Brian Bienkowski | January 25, 2012

Hold onto your safari hats and binoculars, Great Lakes birders. Lake Erie Ohio Birding is a new website detailing about 84 birding sites along the Lake Erie shoreline. It has driving directions, species information and local attractions. It also has more than 1,600 photos of Lake Erie birds to get you amped up before you go get your bird on. The website covers approximately 312 miles of Lake Erie shoreline, one of the region’s best birding coasts.

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If you’re an in-shape, wanna-be scientist, Isle Royale wants you

By Brian Bienkowski | January 24, 2012

Much like the skinny kid who memorizes sports stats because he doesn’t get picked for the team, I write about science because I love it but can’t do it. Along with science, you can also add the Great Lakes and wildlife to my “things I geek-out about” list, which is why the Moosewatch Expeditions project on Isle Royale really speaks to my inner nerd. Moosewatch expeditions are week-long, guided hikes through Isle Royale where regular old lay people are part of an ongoing wolf-moose research project. The purpose is to find moose bones and record data. Most of the bones come from wolf kills or starved animals.

Echo

City lakes attract more airborne mercury than those further away

By Brian Bienkowski | January 23, 2012

Little is know about where mercury ends up after it is put into the air.

But new research shows that it is more likely to end up in lakes near cities than those farther away.

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Detroit, the notorious “food desert,” has healthiest airport restaurants

By Brian Bienkowski | January 18, 2012

If you’re looking for health food in Detroit, your best bet might be the airport. Yes, that’s right. The Detroit Metropolitan Wayne County Airport has been number one for healthiest airport food for three years running. The Physicians Committee for Responsible Medicine conducts the annual restaurant review of the country’s busiest airports. The review determines whether restaurants have at least one low-fat, cholesterol-free meal available.

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Harmful banned pesticide slowly leaving the Great Lakes environment

By Brian Bienkowski | January 18, 2012

Toxaphene is a highly toxic pesticide that has lingered in the Great Lakes since its banning decades ago.

However, the mix of chemicals break down slowly, but appear to be diminishing rapidly in the Great Lakes.

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My Great Lakes Bucket List

By Brian Bienkowski | January 17, 2012

I’ve lived in Michigan my entire life, and, as my city slicker little sister likes to tell me, I’m “such a Midwesterner.”

And she’s probably right. But if having a beard, wearing flannel and vacationing in the Great Lakes is wrong, I don’t want to be right. I’ve seen a black bear meandering carelessly through the Porcupine Mountains. I’ve paid close to a month’s rent on drinks at the top floor of the John Hancock Building in downtown Chicago. I’ve battled nausea, more than once, while trolling Lake Michigan for salmon.

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Evolving bacteria have apple tree farmers searching for options

By Brian Bienkowski | January 16, 2012

Fire blight scorches apple and pear trees in the Great Lakes region in the spring. The bacteria that causes the disease has grown resistant to treatment, so Michigan officials are seeking a federal exemption for a non-registered pesticide.

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Wireless E. coli detector could shave days off bacteria testing

By Brian Bienkowski | January 12, 2012

Testing water for E. coli typically takes one to three days but a new wireless E. coli detector can report levels of the harmful bacteria in under eight hours.

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The Great Lakes get social

By Brian Bienkowski | January 11, 2012

It appears the Great Lakes are getting social. At least it does if you visit the new aggregation site, Social Great Lakes. The site has Twitter feeds lined up like stock tickers constantly in motion. They pull in tweets on news, travel, weather and sports in the Great Lakes, and then the same categories for each lake. The Twitter feeds are updated by searching entire tweets, not just hashtags.

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No snow, no ice means no business for some

By Brian Bienkowski | January 10, 2012

It has been a mild winter so far in the Great Lakes region. And while some rejoice the warmer temperatures, the lack of snow and ice hurts communities that rely on winter tourism.