Wildlife

Tiny wasp could give hope to Northern Michigan cherry growers

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For the past 10 years or so, entomologists have been looking for a way to control the population of spotted wing drosophila, a fruit fly that feeds on healthy cherries and blueberries. They say they may have found their answer in releasing the samba wasp, which kills fruit flies by laying its eggs inside them.

Wildlife

Potter Park Zoo encourages people to help save monarch butterfly population

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In July, the International Union for Conservation of Nature listed the monarch butterfly as endangered for the first time in history. Potter Park Zoo in Lansing, Michigan, first installed a pollinator garden in 2018. With the recent news of the monarch’s decline, the zoo is encouraging people to build wildlife habitats of their own.

Green Gavel

Ohio man pleads guilty to illegally shooting bald eagle

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An Ohio man who admitted fatally shooting a bald eagle will be banned from hunting for five years and has agreed to pay $20,000 as part of his sentence. Half the money will go to the National Fish and Wildlife Foundation, a nonprofit funder of conservation projects, as restitution. The other $10,000 is a fine.

Homepage Featured

Largest tally of snakebites in Michigan

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Michigan’s only venomous snake, the eastern massasauga rattlesnake, has been suspected or proven responsible for at least 75 bites reported in the state from 2003 through 2020, according to the most comprehensive tally ever of such incidents.

Fish

Water test: One fish, two fish – where are all the whitefish?

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Since the early 2000s fewer young whitefish have been making it to adulthood. Understanding the decline of lake whitefish recruitment is important for fishery managers and regulators as they approach the deadline to update a 2000 consent decree that regulates recreational and commercial fishing in Lake Huron and Lake Michigan. 

Great Lakes

Water test: quagga mussels hijack key Great Lakes nutrient

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The impact that quagga mussels have on the Great Lakes food web gives deep meaning to the saying, ‘food for thought.’ These prodigious filter-feeders are implicated in the decline of many Great Lakes fish species, well beyond those with commercial and recreational value.

Fish

Water test: Rending the Great Lakes food web

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The food web in lakes Michigan and Huron has changed in ways that jeopardize age-old fishing traditions and raise questions about how we’ve managed them. Now negotiators are updating a legal settlement that spells out where and how much lake whitefish and lake trout can be harvested. 

Wildlife

Rare wolf attack on baby foxes found on Isle Royale

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For the first time, scientists have documented an adult wolf killing red fox kits in their den. The event occurred in Isle Royale National Park, where researchers found evidence that an adult male wolf known as 016M attacked the kits, killing and possibly feeding on at least two of them – and possibly also killing a third littermate.