Environment
Underwater guns, traps, aim to shake up Great Lakes invaders
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By BRIAN BIENKOWSKI
Capital News Service
LANSING — Nestled in the northwest corner of the Lower Peninsula, the Grand Traverse Bay has experienced declining native fish populations for decades. And all-too-common perpetrators are largely to blame – aquatic invaders. But a new federal and state partnership seeks to bolster the bay’s native fish populations. Officials will use traps and seismic guns to clear rusty crayfish and round gobies from spawning reefs, where they hang out and eat fish eggs. “We are trying to give the native species a helping hand,” said Lindsay Chadderton, the Great Lakes aquatic species director for the Nature Conservancy.