Recreation

Minnesota trail best for donating blood; what about others?

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Outside Magazine just named 32 best trails, each with a different claim to fame — “Best Trail that Doesn’t Exist,” “Best Trail for Getting High,” etc. Four titles are awarded to trails in our Great Lakes states:

Best Prehistoric Trail: Ice Age National Scenic Trail, Wisconsin

Best Trail for Donating Blood: Superior Hiking Trail, Minnesota

Best Canoe Trail: Northern Forest Canoe Trail, partly in New York

Best Burrow: Freedom Tunnel, New York

The only one of these along a Great Lake, however, is Minnesota’s Superior Hiking Trail. This can’t be the only Great Lakes trail worthy of a spot on their list! So help us out. Name your favorite Great Lakes trail and its claim to fame in the comments below!

Echo

Feeding geese? Don’t!

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Perhaps waterfowl feeders derive a sense of well-being and excitement.  Or perhaps it’s just a ploy to bring the birds closer. But feeding geese and ducks is a selfish pursuit that is devastating to the birds, according to Ohio Department of Natural Resources, Wildlife Division. The popcorn, bread and shelled corn handouts lack any nutritional benefit and are a poor substitute to the birds’ natural diet, the wildlife officials say. In fact, it’s like feeding junk to a child. Worse still, as Emily Finnegan of WSILTV.COM reports, fecal waste from geese and ducks is the main cause of elevated e-coli levels in Southern Illinois lakes — nine out of every ten contamination incidences.

Recreation

Two-mile challenge supports bike commuting initiatives

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Bike sharing is increasingly popular throughout the Great Lakes region. Minnesota has a statewide system; Lansing, Mich. recently began exploring the idea; and B-cycle, of Waterloo, Wisc.,  recently was  named the fifth most innovative transportation company by Fast Company Magazine. B-cycle also has locations in Chicago and Madison. Perhaps such systems could help recruit riders to fight climate change.

Land

Michigan leads nation in tree-planting contest

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Michigan leads the country by a landslide in juice company Odwalla’s Plant a Tree campaign. This is the third year of the program that asks people to vote for a state. With each vote, Odwalla donates $1 to plant a tree in one of that state’s parks. For the past two years, Michigan has come out first. While Michigan only represents 14 percent of the land in the Great Lakes region, it has a whopping 60 percent of votes, with 13,036 as of Wednesday.

Echo

Superior, Huron, Ontario left off favorite waterway poll

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Do you have a favorite waterway? Photograph it, submit the picture, and then vote for it as the best waterway in America. Three of 18 candidates provided by Environment America, a federation of state based citizen funded environmental advocacy organization, are Great Lakes- related. The poll includes Lake Michigan, Lake Erie and the Great lakes as a whole. “People from Chicago would identify with Lake Michigan more than the others, while those from Ohio would identify with Lake Erie,” said Piper Crowell, clean water advocate at Environment America, “ A Texan would identify with the Great Lakes as a whole.”

True.

Nearshore

Dr. Beach to announce top 10 Great Lakes beaches

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Stephen Leatherman, a.k.a. “Dr. Beach,” this year will begin compiling a list of the top 10 Great Lakes beaches. Letterman has rated national beaches since 1991, but this is the first year that our freshwater beaches will be in the spotlight. Beach managers and representatives nominated roughly 30 beaches. Miami-based Leatherman used the Internet to research the beaches. The rating system is down to a science — Leatherman has 50 criteria to determine the best beaches.

Echo

Ontario, Illinois use tabletop exercises to practice for Asian invasion

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Officials in Ontario are preparing for a possible Asian carp invasion in the Thames River by performing a tabletop exercise with the Ministry of Natural Resources and Fisheries and Oceans Canada. The simulation demonstrated that in the event of such an invasion, nets would be placed upstream and downstream to catch fish; an alternate plan is to use electrical current to catch the carp, according to Treehugger. This invasion concern stems from repeated incidents of people trying to bring trucks of the species into Toronto to sell. Similar techniques are being planned in the U.S. as well, as announced in the Monitoring and Rapid Response Plan for Illinois Waters. Are these tabletop exercises adequate in anticipation of a potentially devastating disaster?

Echo

MONDAY MASHUP: Efforts underway to eliminate ‘food deserts’

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A number of Michigan counties have fewer healthy food outlets than the national average, a new study shows.

The overall percentage of counties’ access to healthy foods in the state is 73 percent, while the national benchmark is 92 percent, according to County Health Rankings, complied by the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation and University of Wisconsin Population Health Institute.