Great Lakes Echo (https://greatlakesecho.org/tag/catch-of-the-day/page/103/)
The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service has removed gray wolves in the western Great Lakes region from the federal endangered species list. The western Great Lakes region includes Michigan, Wisconsin, Minnesota and portions of North Dakota, South Dakota, Iowa, Illinois, Indiana and Ohio. The delisting takes effect Jan. 27. State departments will manage wolves after the delisting.
Take a break from the eggnog, fuzzy sweaters and family parties to take part in the National Audubon Society’s Christmas Bird Count, a citizen science program that’s been running each winter since 1900. From Dec. 14 until Jan. 5, help out by counting birds in specified areas and submitting the data to the Audubon Society. The information helps scientists study the long-term health of North American birds.
Next time you’re about to scowl at a wasp, think again. Researchers at the University of Michigan found that paper wasps, Polistes fuscatus, learn each other’s faces the way humans do. The study was published in Science. Researchers showed the smart little buggers pictures of other paper wasps, caterpillars, shapes and computer-altered pictures. They set up a maze that required the wasps to choose the right image to find a pathway through it.
America’s Top Power Plant Toxic Air Polluters, released by the Environmental Integrity Project, contains data on toxic power plant emissions and puts Great Lakes states right at the top. Some highlights:
Six of the top 10 arsenic emitting power plants are in Pennsylvania
Pennsylvania power plants emit 28 percent of the nation’s arsenic air pollution from power plants
Two Consumers Energy plants in Michigan emit 86 percent of the state’s total chromium air pollution from power plants
The Miami Fort Generating Station in Ohio is the nation’s top polluter of hydrochloric acid among power plants
The Discovery Channel’s Drain the Great Lakes dives below the surface of the Great Lakes. See the underwater topography of each lake and learn about shipwrecks, submerged waterfalls, craters and invasive species. The lakes hold almost 20 percent of the world’s surface freshwater … but what if the water was gone? The program explores some of the man-made and natural wonders underneath the waters, and exposes the geographic uniqueness of the giant water bowls that surround us.
Every year American Rivers lists America’s Most Endangered Rivers, and every year the Chicago River is one of them. Well, that may change in 2012. American Rivers posts periodic updates about the dubious rivers they shame every spring, and the river advocacy group now says the Windy City’s twisting stream of sewage is cleaning up its image — and water. For years the Metropolitan Water Reclamation District has spewed bacteria-filled sewage into the river without disinfecting it by using ultraviolet light, which kills the germs. The EPA and environmental groups pushed the city for years to add the disinfection step — a step that almost every other major city does. But the notion was that no one used the river.
Martin Reinhardt, member of the Sault Ste. Marie Tribe of Chippewa Indians and teacher at Northern Michigan University, is planning a Decolonizing Diet Project, where he and a group will only eat food that was available 300 years ago in Michigan’s Upper Peninsula. The project officially starts spring 2012, but Reinhardt is already collecting wild foods and developing recipes. He’s made wild rice milk and pectin, gathered cranberries, leeks and ferns and been hunting to stock his kitchen. Reinhardt has already tried out the decolonized diet with a week of eating indigenous foods.
This video game by the Entertainment Technology Center and The Field Museum of Chicago, funded by the MacArthur Foundation, lets you take over the Great Lakes, protect them, and learn about invasive species. In round one, you are the carp. Fight native perch for food (and watch them float up to the surface with X’s in their eyes) and get your carp friends to jump out of the water and knock boaters out of their boats. In the next round, you are the Carp Czar appointed to keep the carp out of Lake Michigan. You have to find the carp and build barriers to stop them from getting to the lake, all while keeping up public approval.
Residents of Wisconsin believe their home state is shaped like a mitten. Since when? If you’re going to use another state’s trademark, at least choose a state on the other side of the country, not one right next to you. Or be shaped more like a mitten. Those of us who live in Michigan have a hard time accepting Wisconsin as the place where you use your hand to point out where you are from.
Great Lakes ships may be getting natural gas makeovers. Researchers with the Great Lakes Maritime Research Institute will soon study converting steam-powered ships to natural gas, using either compressed or liquid natural gas as primary fuel sources. The team is also working with the Lake Michigan Carferry Service to determine the possibility of converting the controversial S.S. Badger to natural gas. From mid-May through mid-October, the S.S. Badger travels between Manitowoc, Wisc., and Ludington, Mich., every day. The monster vessel is the only coal-fired steamship operating in the U.S. and has come under fire from environmentalists because, as Echo reported, it emits nearly four tons of toxic coal ash into Lake Michigan with every trip and has been under an Environmental Protection Agency order since 2008 to fix its pollution problem by 2012.