Echo

New tool from Canadian scientists predicts warmer Great Lakes water temperatures

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Jeff Gillies
jeffgillies@gmail.com
Great Lakes Echo
Sept. 28, 2009

Great Lakes climate science is often stuck in the past. Studies show that all five lakes have warmed up over the past century. But they rarely predict how much the water will warm in the next one. A new tool from Canada could help buck that trend, warning policymakers of new threats from foreign organisms and other waterborne consequence of global climate change.

Echo

Farm runoff woes: Can voluntary programs alone keep dirt out of the water?

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By Jeff Gillies
jeffgillies@gmail.com
Great Lakes Echo
Sept. 17, 2009

The Great Lakes and the Chesapeake Bay both field noxious summer algae blooms fueled by dirt and nutrients from farm fields. The six northeastern states that drain into the Chesapeake Bay have a patchwork plan to curb it. It doesn’t work and never will, says a recent report by the Environmental Working Group, a non-profit lobbyist and research group. The report claims runoff prevention programs fail because they’re voluntary — farmers that don’t want to participate don’t have to.

Wildlife

Special report: The alewife question

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Alewives are a Great Lakes invasive fish that baffle native fish reproduction but give imported Pacific salmon — the target of a profitable fishery — something to eat. What’s a Great Lakes fishery manager to do? Sept. 2, 2009
Alewives: Should Great Lakes managers kill ‘em or keep ‘em? Fishery managers have made little progress in restoring lake trout, the Great Lakes’ dominant predator until the species collapsed in the 1940s and 1950s.

Wildlife

Great Lakes fish in the balance; biologists have little control

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By Jeff Gillies, jeffgillies@gmail.com
Great Lakes Echo
Sept. 4, 2009
Editors note: This is the final story in a three-part series about the challenges of managing non-native fish in the Great Lakes. Managing invasive alewives in the Great Lakes is like walking a tightrope. Too many stymie native lake trout reproduction. Too few cripple the profitable salmon fishery.

Wildlife

Alewives: The trouble they cause and the salmon that love them

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By Jeff Gillies, jeffgillies@gmail.com
Great Lakes Echo
Sept. 3, 2009
Editors note: This is the second of three stories in a series about the challenges of managing non-native fish in the Great Lakes. Pacific salmon, the big money species in the multi-billion dollar Great Lakes fishery, need a feast of alewives to thrive. But alewives are an invasive species that harm lake trout, a native fish that biologists have been trying and failing to re-establish for decades. Alewives keep lake trout down in two ways, said Mark Ebener, fish assessment biologist with the Chippewa Ottawa Resources Authority.

Wildlife

Alewives: Should Great Lakes managers kill ‘em or keep ‘em?

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By Jeff Gillies, jeffgillies@gmail.com
Great Lakes Echo
Sept. 2, 2009
Editor’s note: This is the first in a series of stories about the challenges of managing non-native fish in the Great Lakes. Fishery managers have made little progress in restoring lake trout, the Great Lakes’ dominant predator until the species collapsed in the 1940s and 1950s. Most of them agree that alewives, a non-native fish, are a big part of the problem. They invaded the lakes from the Atlantic Ocean after the Welland Canal opened in 1932.

Echo

Going up and diving down: Exploring the Great Lakes with blimps and subs

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By Jeff Gillies, jeffgillies@gmail.com
Great Lakes Echo
Aug. 21, 2009

A marshmallow blimp and a yellow submarine are gearing up to explore the Great Lakes from above and below. The SkySentry Aerostat — an unmanned blimp designed for military use — wouldn’t be out of place advertising a used car clearance sale, Michael Scott writes in the Cleveland Plain Dealer. Instead, officials are testing the big white blimp’s ability to collect imagery of Lake Erie algae blooms that turn the lake’s shallow western waters green and suffocate fish. Check the Plain Dealer’s story for video and a slide show.

Recreation

Top Great Lakes trips

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View Great Lakes Adventures in a larger map
Outside Magazine has picked its top seven Great Lakes adventures:

Trout fish Michigan’s Jordan River
Dive for shipwrecks in Ontario’s Thunder Bay
Hike, climb and kayak Minnesota’s north shore
Bike in Wisconsin’s Kettle Moraine State Forest
Sail Lake Huron’s Georgian Bay
Canoe in Ontario’s Algonquin Provincial Park
Kayak Canada’s Pukaskwa National Park

Do you agree? Know of a Great Lakes trip that should make the list? And what about cool outdoor trips around lakes Erie and Ontario? Weigh in with a comment below.