Great Lakes Echo (https://greatlakesecho.org/category/wildlife/page/61/)
This broad category encompasses fish. It is further divided on the main menu with tags for mammals, insects, amphibians, birds, mussels, invaders and endangered wildlife.
It’s time to break out the brass band because trumpeter swans are back.
Standing up to 4-feet tall with up to an 8-foot wingspan, trumpeter swans are the largest waterfowl in North America. Their Great Lakes range includes: Minnesota, Wisconsin, Michigan, Ohio, New York and Ontario.
Early settlers hunted these birds nearly to extinction in the 1800s — using them to make powder puffs and feathered hats.
Scientists have identified a new weapon to ward off two troublesome Great Lakes invaders: A bacterium strain that destroys their guts. It could be an alternative to chlorine and other chemical treatments.
Two funny-named species of freshwater mussels currently found in rivers of the Great Lake states were recently proposed for Endangered Species Act protection.
The rayed bean and snuffbox mussels were recently proposed to be listed as endangered by the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service. Chemical contaminants, sedimentation, nonpoint source pollution and mining are threats to their habitat’s water quality, according to the service.
The make up of urban landscapes may throw a curve ball at female northern cardinals looking for a mate with more than just a great personality.
Michigan’s bats are under attack — not from tennis racquet-swinging bat swatters or vampire-hunters but principally from a deadly fungus with the potential to disrupt the ecosystem.
Nationwide, white-nose syndrome has wiped out an estimated 1 million bats since it was initially seen in a New York cave in 2006. Since then, it’s been identified in 14 states and two Canadian provinces and is moving westward.
Each fall thousands of raptors like the American Kestrel, Bald Eagle and Turkey Vulture, cross the Detroit River every day.
And each one is counted by hand.
A decade-old discovery in Lake Michigan is already disappearing.
Last month Echo reported that Great Lakes migratory birds are threatened by the Gulf oil spill. Regional bird expert Francie Cuthbert, a University of Minnesota professor, was busy with fieldwork when we tried to reach her then. But she got back with us for this update:
Female Great Lakes piping plovers will head south for the winter ahead of the males in a couple weeks. Since nothing is cleaned up, they will almost certainly be affected by the spill, Cuthbert says. She expects only a small percentage of plovers that come in contact with the oil to survive.
Researchers are increasingly recruiting different wasp warriors in the battle against the emerald ash borer, a destructive, tree-eating beetle that has infiltrated the entire Great Lakes region.
Costly insecticides, tree-removal strategies and bans on moving firewood have provided some defense against the critter.
But a bug-on-bug battle strategy appears to hold promise.
Biologists discovered the disease in New York in 2006, and it has since spread into Pennsylvania, Ontario and 14 other states and provinces.