Great Lakes Echo (https://greatlakesecho.org/tag/fish/page/14/)
State natural resource officials are wondering how a mysterious virus found its way to Wisconsin trout and what it will mean for the health of aquatic life.
Despite the uncertainty, state authorities confirm that they released 270,000 brown trout this year from hatcheries where fish tested positive for the cutthroat trout virus. An additional 160,000 had already been released last year before officials got the test results.
If you’ve been boating on the Great Lakes this summer, it might it surprise you to know that deep below you lives a rare species of fish that’s been around since the dinosaurs. It can live past 100 years old and can be over six feet long. Most of us know next to nothing about the lake sturgeon, but it is a fascinating creature with a stormy history. Nancy Auer is a professor of biology at Michigan Technological University. She recently co-authored a book with environmentalist Dave Dempsey about the fish.
Rearing sturgeon for stocking has proven to be difficult, uncertain and expensive, but it may be the only practical way to rebuild sturgeon populations in the Great Lakes.
Researchers studying the threats to lake sturgeon are using their findings to teach kids about the environment.
Cleanup efforts at two Michigan Areas of Concern, Muskegon Lake and White Lake, have reached important milestones, according to the Michigan Office of the Great Lakes. The Environmental Protection Agency on Feb. 26 lifted Beneficial Use Impairments on both lakes pertaining to fish consumption, allowing local residents and anglers to fish these lakes with fewer restrictions. Recent studies by Grand Valley State University on the lakes revealed that fish there did not possess higher concentrations of PCBs or mercury than fish in lakes that were not listed as Areas of Concern. Both lakes remain subject to the same fish consumption advisories as the other lakes in the area.
These fish live more than 70 years and grow to be more than six feet long. But they are so rare that the season ended this year once six were landed. The Black Lake Shivaree festival celebrates the prehistoric species.
The muskie production program of the Department of Natural Resources (DNR) has turned a huge corner by stocking only Great Lakes muskies. The department has raised muskellunge for stocking for decades but had always used northern muskies. This is the second year it produced strictly Great Lakes muskies.
Alright, sturgeon … they made your bed, now spawn in it.
Michigan organizations and agencies are building nine rock reefs in the Middle Channel of the St. Clair River to bolster native fish spawning and restore habitat.
How does a scientist use sound to save a 150-million-year-old fish? In Wisconsin, Ron Bruch and Chris Bocast are trying to help restore sturgeon stock by listening for the sound they make when spawning that some call “thunder.” The sound can be heard here. “It’s a real low frequency, you can almost feel it instead of hear it,” said Bruch, fish supervisor with the Wisconsin Department of Natural Resources. “One of the important measures of success is knowing your stock is spawning.”
Bocast, a University of Wisconsin-Madison doctoral student in acoustic ecology, discovered the sound while working on an audio book about sturgeons.
Atlantic salmon once thrived in Lake Ontario but went extinct when their habitat and spawning grounds were ruined. U.S. and Canadian scientists are now trying to bring the species back.