Environment

Experts from Israel, Great Lakes compare big water

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By MORGAN LINN
Capital News Service

LANSING — While Lake Michigan protectors are fighting a threatened carp invasion, managers in Israel are dumping them into the Sea of Galilee. That’s just one of the differences in managing two of the world’s largest lakes that emerged during a recent conference between lake managers from Israel and the Great Lakes region. The Sea of Galilee – or Lake Kinneret – and Lake Michigan differ greatly in size, but experts from both areas shared common experiences and found ways of learning from each other at the Michigan State University conference
Lake Kinneret, in northeast Israel, is only about 13 miles long by 8 miles wide but is the largest freshwater lake in Israel.That’s much smaller than Lake Michigan, which is 307 miles long by 118 miles wide, but the researchers said the two bodies of water share similar challenges. And the differences are also a learning opportunity for both groups, they said. Where management of the two lakes differs greatly involves silver carp.

Environment

Culling deer herd reduced chronic wasting disease

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By CARIN TUNNEY
Capital News Service

LANSING — Federal sharpshooters and more hunting permits that reduced the deer population helped fight chronic wasting disease among white-tailed deer, the Michigan Department of Natural Resources reports. Results are in from the first-year management strategy for chronic wasting disease in Michigan. Wildlife officials confirmed the disease in the state’s wild deer herd in May 2015. During the past 16 months, the DNR tested more than 6,000 animals killed by hunters, sharpshooters employed by the U.S. Department of Agriculture or in traffic accidents. Eight tested positive, the report shows.

Environment

Ban on baiting trout with chum stirs controversy

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By MARIE ORTTENBURGER
Capital News Service

LANSING — Many anglers and guides are unhappy about the Natural Resources Commission’s new ban on scattering fish parts and eggs to lure fish on trout streams.
“It kind of drives me nuts,” said Chad Betts, owner of Betts Guide Service and Outfitters in Newaygo. Known as chumming, the practice has long been controversial. Critics say it can cause disease and that it’s an unfair way to catch more fish. But some anglers don’t think those are reasons enough to categorically ban the practice on trout streams, as the commission did in July. They argue that the ban will deal a blow to Michigan’s fishing tourism economy.

Environment

Great Lakes writer tackles tale of survival 50 years after Lake Huron shipwreck

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By NATASHA BLAKELY
Capital News Service

LANSING — Michael Schumacher was born and raised in Wisconsin and has been living right by the shore of Lake Michigan all of his life. “The lake means a lot to me so I won’t take it for granted, ever,” said Schumacher, 62. “I tried to read a lot of the history, learn as much as I can. The more I can learn the better, and I’ve learned the five Great Lakes have separate personalities; they’re all different in their own way.”
He should know. Schumacher recently wrote “Torn in Two: The Sinking of the Daniel J. Morrell and One Man’s Survival on the Open Sea.” It is his 13th published book, and the fourth in his series on Great Lakes shipwrecks.

Environment

Waters rise, gas prices drop and boats boom in summer 2016

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By BRIDGET BUSH
Capital News Service
LANSING — Michigan boating boomed this summer as water levels reached near-record highs, gas prices stayed low and the weather invited people to cruise, said boating experts across the state. New models helped increase boat shop traffic, said Nick Polan, executive director of the Michigan Boating Industries Association. Low interest rates made financing more feasible than in years following the 2008 recession. That spurred sales in an industry known for owners who hold onto their boats for decades, Polan said. It was “the seventh consecutive year of expansion for the state’s marine economy.”

Environment

Tribal communities strive to protect water quality

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By KELLY vanFRANKENHUYZEN
Capital News Service
LANSING — Water warriors from tribes across the Great Lakes region are preserving an important relative. It’s water – a resource so important that tribes refer to it in such personal terms.
“Water is a living resource, and we share an interdependent relationship with it,” said Daugherty Johnson III, environmental services manager at the Little Traverse Bay Bands of Odawa Indians, in Harbor Springs. Native Americans in the U.S. and First Nations in Canada believe water plays an important role historically, economically, politically, geographically and culturally. Tribal and non-tribal governments in Canada and the U.S. share responsibility for preserving the Great Lakes through various agreements. A major one, the Great Lakes Water Quality Agreement, is a binational understanding of roles they contribute to Great Lakes protection.

Environment

Shining lights on Great Lakes history

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By JOSH BENDER
Capital News Service
LANSING — Three Lake Superior lighthouses, including one in the Upper Peninsula, were recently added to the National Register for Historic Places. The Presque Isle Harbor Breakwater Light was built in 1941 to assist in shipping out iron ore mined in Michigan’s Upper Peninsula, according to U.S .Coast Guard historian Daniel Koski-Karell, who applied to get the lighthouses added to the register. Standing in Presque Isle Harbor, the light is still used for this purpose today. The harbor is the ninth-busiest in the Great Lakes, according to the National Register application. In addition to shipping out iron ore, the harbor receives freighters bearing coal to fuel the Presque Isle Power Plant.

Environment

Anglers enlisted in water fight

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By COLLEEN OTTE
Capital News Service
LANSING — Alert anglers are to the Great Lakes what the military is to the United States: the last line of defense against invaders. “Anglers are kind of the eyes and ears on the water for us,” said Seth Herbst, aquatic invasive species coordinator for the Department of Natural Resources (DNR) Fisheries Division. A recent study by researchers at Cornell University found that anglers in the Great Lakes region are aware of and concerned about the threat of aquatic invasive species. Already such invaders have significantly altered the ecological makeup of the Great Lakes. In the 1950s and 1980s, populations of alewife, a herring species, peaked in Lake Huron and Lake Michigan.

Environment

Of wolves, deer, wildflowers and maples

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By ERIC FREEDMAN
Capital News Service
LANSING — Grey wolves are good for wildflowers like the nodding trillium and the Canada mayflower in the Great Lakes region. They’re also good for young red maples and sugar maples. That’s because white-tailed deer are bad for both wildflowers and maple saplings. And wolves are bad for deer. With the resurgence of wolves in the region, smart deer are learning to keep away from areas with many of the predators, meaning that wildflowers and young maples there have a better chance of survival, according to a recent study by scientists from the University of Notre Dame and the Michigan Department of Natural Resources (MDNR).

Environment

Eye in the sky looks at Great Lakes wrecks

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By COLLEEN OTTE
Capital News Service
LANSING — When spotting submerged shipwrecks proved difficult, researchers oddly looked to the sky. Shipwrecks can threaten the Great Lakes environment if remaining onboard fuel leaks or they harbor invasive species that like to stick to them. A recent study in the Journal of Archaeological Science suggests that satellite imagery can be used to locate these potentially hazardous wrecks that may otherwise go unnoticed. Shipwreck searchers rely on sonar in deep waters and airborne laser systems in clear waters. But neither method is as effective for near shore areas with cloudy, shallow waters, according to the study.