Climate
Wild rice being affected by climate change
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By Isabella Figueroa
To the Ojibwe, manoomin is more than a plant: It’s a sacred relative. However, as lakes warm and waters rise, their ancient bond is being tested by climate change.
Water
Century-old shipwreck discovered in Lake Michigan by a 25-year-old angler
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By Isabella Figueroa Nogueira
It was another foggy day of fishing on the Wisconsin waters of Lake Michigan. As 25-year-old Christopher Thuss was scanning the waters for bass, something unexpected appeared on his sonar: an unknown object beneath the surface. What he had discovered was no ordinary catch, but a 102-year-old shipwreck, the J.C. Ames.
Wildlife
New state program encourages Michigan residents to report bat roosts
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By Clara Lincolnhol
The Department of Natural Resources is encouraging residents to report bat roosts. These are the places where bats sleep and raise their babies like chimneys, trees and bridges. DNR bat specialist John DePue says the Michigan Bat Roost Monitoring Program will collect data that will help scientists better understand bat behavior and improve conservation methods.
Solutions
Aquaculture can help local communities, economies and food security, study shows
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By Isabella Figueroa
There are many reasons for aquaculture, like food, stocking, ornamental and bait. Historically, commercial fishing provided local, sustainable seafood. Due to environmental regulations, species decline and economic shifts, however, this industry has shrunk in the Great Lakes Region, according to a recent study.
Wildlife
Wildlife changes found on Lake Huron island
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By Eric Freedman
In nature, a lot can change on a largely uninhabited Great Lakes island over the course of a century. And a lot can stay the same. That includes the disappearance and appearance of wildlife species. That’s what scientists discovered when they inventoried mammals and amphibians on Charity Island, a 252-acre speck near the mouth of Saginaw Bay in Lake Huron. It’s one of about 35,000 islands in the Great Lakes, most of them even smaller than Charity Island, according to a recent study.
Solutions
Michigan’s bottle return rates keep falling. Is it time for change?
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By Emilio Perez Ibarguen
Michigan beer and pop buyers increasingly aren’t bothering to return their bottles and cans to get their deposit back, and in the process left more than $116 million on the table last year. Some beverage industry representatives are pointing to the decrease as a sign that the law has become irrelevant. Meanwhile, retailers and environmentalists alike are looking at what could be done to make returning empties more convenient — although they butt heads on how exactly to do so.
Water
Michigan’s fight against Lake Erie pollution didn’t work. What happens next?
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Since the 1990s, algae blooms have become increasingly common each summer in western Lake Erie. The blooms are caused by an overabundance of nutrients, namely phosphorus, that spills into the lake off farms. Credit: National Oceanographic and Atmospheric Administration
By Emilio Perez Ibarguen
Michigan and its neighbors have missed a 2025 deadline to curb the farm pollution that feeds toxic algal blooms in western Lake Erie, despite 10 years of work and millions of dollars spent on the effort.
Now, state officials are revamping their strategy. But they’re not setting a new deadline for now. “Seeing how we’re implementing these newer approaches is an important step before updating some of the timelines,” said Tim Boring, the director of the Department of Agriculture and Rural Development.
He added that any future deadline should be “realistic and achievable.”
The state’s strategy irks environmentalists who have long criticized Great Lakes governments for refusing to regulate farm pollution while instead leaning on voluntary programs that aren’t working. “These were commitments made by the state of Ohio, by the state of Michigan, by the United States.
Water
Great Lakes slightly colder than usual ahead of summer
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By Emilio Perez Ibarguen
Now that Memorial Day is behind us, thoughts naturally turn to summer and the return of watersports on the Great Lakes, but Michiganders tempted to take a dip in those inviting waters now might be in for a chilly surprise. Slowed by a cold May, the Great Lakes are slightly cooler than usual for this time of year.
Land
New book digs into Indigenous cuisine through archaeology, culture and ecology
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By Isabella Figueroa
In a new book, archeologists who study past societies of the Great Lakes and Midwest agree “you are what you eat,” but they say there’s a lot more to it than that. It’s also how we eat: the ways we “prepare, cook and consume” those foods are influenced by our history, family and natural environment.The book’s essays use the concept of cuisine to go beyond ingredients when studying thousand-year old foodways in regions that now make up Michigan, Indiana, Illinois, Wisconsin and other states.
Wildlife
White throated sparrow takes first place in fattest bird competition
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By Clara Lincolnhol
A very round white throated sparrow is the heavyweight champion of the 2025 Wisconsin Fat Bird Week contest. The bird, coined the “spherical white-throated sparrow,” won by a landslide, receiving 72% of the vote in the final round against its nearest competitor, a “rotund ruby-throated hummingbird.”