Great Lakes Echo (https://greatlakesecho.org/category/wildlife/page/65/)
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.
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.
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.
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.
Editors note: Congress is considering a $475 million appropriation for Great Lakes cleanup. This story is part of an occasional look at proposals for spending it. Is this appropriate? Weigh in on this and other ideas on Echo’s Great Lakes Restoration Initiative forum. Other stories.
By Jeff Gillies, jeffgillies@gmail.com
Great Lakes Echo
July 9, 2009
Wind turbines cut air pollution, but they may mean respiratory trouble for bats flying nearby. “Basically, their lungs explode,” said Barb Barton, biologist with the Michigan Natural Features Inventory. Though wind turbines can kill bats by smacking them out of the sky, the huge spinning blades more often take out bats without touching them. Turbine blades spinning at up to 200 mph leave in their wake a vortex of low pressure, Barton said. Bats get caught in the vortex, and the change in pressure ruptures capillaries in the bats’ lungs.
(NY) The New York Times – In 1985, 47 elk were released in the southern section of Theodore Roosevelt National Park in western North Dakota. Today, that herd numbers some 900 animals, far more than the park can sustain. The herd needs to be reduced to about 300 in order to bring it into balance with its ecosystem. What to do? More
A bizarre salamander and the endangered, clam-like mussel that relies on it got good news recently from Canadian scientists. Federal researchers found an apparently stable population of mudpuppies in Ontario’s Sydenham River. The research is published in the June issue of the Journal of Great Lakes Research. Mudpuppies are native to the Great Lakes and have beady eyes, slimy skin and feathery gills sticking out of their necks. “I find them very interesting animals, but I can see why the general public wouldn’t rate them up there with bluebirds,” said Jim Harding, herpetology specialist at the Michigan State University Museum.
(MI) Detroit Free Press – The state Department of Natural Resources last week reminded northern Michigan residents that yearling bear cubs are on the loose — and that means extra precautions. This is the time of year mother bears leave their cubs in preparation for the breeding season. The young bears are attracted to food sources in yards. More
There may be hope for fishery managers still reeling years after a dangerous virus appeared in the Great Lakes. The month-long wait for a viral hemorrhagic septicemia test has hobbled hatcheries that must test fish before introducing them to the region’s lakes and streams. Genetics researchers at the Lake Erie Research Center at the University of Toledo are working on a test that will speed up that diagnosis to a matter of hours. The research, supported by the U.S. Department of Agriculture, is one of several projects around the Great Lakes studying a virus that has cost the region tens of millions of dollars in staff time, lost hatchery capacity and research. The tourism and ecosystem impacts are as yet unknown, Marc Gaden, communications director for the Great Lakes Fishery Commission, wrote in an e-mail. About $1.2 million from various sources has been spent on projects that seek to better understand the virus and develop diagnostic tests, said Gary Whelan, the fish production manager for the Michigan Department of Natural Resources Fisheries Division
The virus was first detected in the Great Lakes in 2005 and 2006 after it killed large numbers of fresh water drum, muskellunge, round gobies and yellow perch.
(MN) Minneapolis Star-Tribune – Chain saws and experts are converging in the Twin Cities in the fight against the emerald ash borer. In St. Paul, foresters identified eight more infested trees Tuesday as workers continued to remove dozens of others fatally damaged by the bug that, first found in St. Paul May 13, threatens the state’s 900 million ash trees. So far, 67 trees have been either taken down this week or targeted for removal in an effort officials hope will thwart the insect that has killed tens of millions of trees across the Midwest and southern Canada in the past seven years.