Agriculture

Great Lakes cities swallow streams

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By KEVIN DUFFY
Capital News Service
LANSING — Developers have buried more than 350 miles of streams in Michigan over the last century, creating large areas researchers call “urban stream deserts.”
These riverless areas favor concrete connections over urban parkways. They submerge surface streams, sometimes swallowing entire river systems.

“Urban rivers have value, and when cities start to systematically remove them, they remove viable ecosystem services, like flood control,” said Jacob Napieralski, an associate professor of geology at the University of Michigan-Dearborn. Detroit has lost 86 percent of its surface streams since 1905, according to a study Napieralski recently submitted to the Journal of Maps. That’s roughly 180 miles of stream. Other Michigan cities, including Ann Arbor and Grand Rapids, have seen declines with up to 60 percent stream loss.

Environment

Climate change threatens rare orchid

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By KEVIN DUFFY
Capital News Service
LANSING — As climate change threatens wet landscapes with persistent and intense droughts, natural resource managers are looking for ways to preserve the remaining habitats of the rare species such as the orchid known as white lady’s slipper. It’s not easy. “There’s a big problem with managing climate sensitive species,” said Sue Galatowitsch, a professor of fisheries, wildlife and conservation biology at the University of Minnesota. That problem – the uncertainty of the future climate – was the focus of a recent study of how best to protect the small white lady’s slipper. In the Great Lakes region, the lady’s slipper is rare, threatened or endangered in Michigan, Minnesota, Wisconsin, Illinois, Indiana, Ohio and New York.

Environment

North Country Trail hikers set 100-mile centennial goal

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By KEVIN DUFFY
Capital News Service
LANSING — Joan Young of Scottville is a frequent hiker on the seven-state North Country National Scenic Trail. Soon, she’ll have a special patch to show for it. Young, who over the years has logged every one of the trail’s 4,600 miles, is participating this year in a 100-mile hike challenge sponsored by the North Country Trail Association, headquartered in Lowell. The challenge marks the National Park Service’s centennial and will reward those who complete it with a commemorative patch. “I already have nine miles on the trail for 2016,” Young said last month.

Agriculture

Asian carp would change fish species in Lake Erie

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By KEVIN DUFFY
Capital News Service
LANSING — A new study by researchers based in Ann Arbor suggests that Asian carp would disrupt the food web and decimate native species like walleye if they invade Lake Erie. And that could blunt the economic impact anglers have on nearby communities. A second study by a Michigan State University economics researcher will compare the study’s predicted changes in fish population and the number of fishing trips taken in the region. Invasive silver and bighead carp are already abundant in nearby Great Lakes watersheds . They devour microscopic plants called phytoplankton and animals called zooplankton, the first food of popular fish like walleye and Chinook salmon.

Environment

Free boat wash targets Michigan invaders

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By KEVIN DUFFY
Capital News Service
LANSING — Michigan State University is fighting the state’s worst aquatic invaders with mobile lakeside education and free boat washes. A grant from the Department of Environmental Quality and U.S. Forest Service supports the portable project, which has already landed in 32 inland lakes as part of the “Clean, Drain, Dry” initiative. “Boats and boat trailers are the number one means of lake-to-lake transport for invasive species,” said Sarah Plantrich, a project outreach volunteer. With more than 150 boats washed, Plantrich and other volunteers have discovered and removed aquatic invaders that threaten the health of lake systems.
Some plant invaders, like the Eurasian watermilfoil, crowd out native species. Others, including starry stonewort, release chemicals that dampen native species’ growth and form dense meadows that keep fish from spawning.

Environment

Sex and violence may control sea lamprey

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By KEVIN DUFFY
Capital News Service
LANSING — For the first time, researchers have combined the smell of death with the lure of sex to better target a parasitic invader that has feasted on Great Lakes fish for decades. Their target is the sea lamprey, an invasive species that uses its toothy sucker-like mouth to feast on Great Lakes trout, salmon, sturgeon, walleye and whitefish. Before lamprey were managed, they cost the Great Lakes 110 million fish annually. The cost of control is about $20 million a year, saving about 100 million fish annually, said Marc Gaden of the Great Lakes Fishery Commission, the agency responsible for managing the sea lamprey. Control today is primarily with a selective pesticide that’s dumped into rivers and streams to kill them.

Business & Economy

Michigan faces ecological debt

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By KEVIN DUFFY
Capital News Service
LANSING — The nation hit Ecological Deficit Day recently, thanks in part to states like Michigan that use more resources than they can regenerate. A report by the California-based Global Footprint Network and the Tacoma, Washington, nonprofit group Earth Economics details resource availability and the environmental footprint of all 50 states. That footprint includes the unsustainable practices that broke Michigan’s ecological budget. It’s not just the fault of the Great Lakes State. In fact, only 16 states can boast that they use fewer resources than they renew each year.

Environment

Dawn of the Great Lakes Wolf Patrol

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Editors note: This is the second of a two-part story about Rod Coronado, a convicted eco-terrorist now working to protect wolves in the Great Lakes region. By HOLLY DRANKHAN
Capital News Service
LANSING — One of the Great Lakes Wolf Patrol’s first actions after it was established in 2013 was photographing a wolf killed in Michigan and posting the pictures on its website to inspire others to take up the cause. The group has since established chapters in Michigan, Wisconsin and Minnesota. Founder Rod Coronado of Grand Rapids also organized a patrol in Montana to oppose hunting wolves as they leave the protection of Yellowstone National Park. In each location, the group sticks to public lands and roads, and avoids infringing on hunters under the guidelines of hunter harassment laws, Coronado said.

Agriculture

Detroit Refuge

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By KEVIN DUFFY
Capital News Service
LANSING – What was once considered the ultimate paradox is now setting a precedent for urban development – a wildlife refuge along the Detroit River. “Bringing Conservation to Cities: Lessons from Building the Detroit River International Wildlife Refuge” (Michigan State University Press, $39.95) is a new book about a public-private success story written by inland water scientist John Hartig. It traces the establishment of the country’s first international wildlife refuge. “The next generation of conservationists will come from urban areas,” said Hartig, who is the refuge’s manager. “An area, like Detroit, with 7 million people in the combined watershed, should be engaging them.”

Conservationists seeking field experience in the pristine wilderness might have a challenge, he said.

Business & Economy

Sonar mapping shipwrecks now hunt trout habitat

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By KEVIN DUFFY
Capital News Service
LANSING – Maritime archaeologists are swapping shipwreck surveys for lake trout mapping in Lake Huron. And they’re using sound waves to do it. “Consider it double-dipping. The sonar on research vessels could map an area of interest for shipwrecks while also helping out some biologists,” said Russ Green, program coordinator at Thunder Bay National Marine Sanctuary in Alpena. The biologists say they want to use the results in lake-wide rehabilitation of trout habitat.