November 7th, 2013 by Irene Miles
Following last year’s record low water levels in the Great Lakes, and in Lake Michigan and Lake Huron specifically, this year’s rains have helped push those levels back towards the historical average.
From MLive.com:
“Heavy October rain could help Lake Michigan and Lake Huron continue to rise toward the long term average water level. Lake Michigan – Huron is still 15 inches below the long term average, but is 11 inches higher than this time last year. Slowly the lake level is increasing. The lake levels will likely fall over the next four months. This is a normal cycle. If the lakes don’t fall as much as normal this winter, the lakes are set up to be higher next summer than this summer…
All of this rain can help Lake Michigan – Huron not fall as much as usual in November.”
Read the complete article at the link above.
November 5th, 2013 by Irene Miles
A recent article in the Journal-Sentinel online reports that Asian carp DNA have been found for the first time in the Lake Michigan waters near Wisconsin.
From JSonline:
“The single positive water sample for the jumping silver carp was taken May 31 in Sturgeon Bay near Door County’s Potawatomi State Park.
The sampling was part of a Lake Michigan-wide survey looking for evidence of Eurasian ruffe, a different type of invasive fish species. The water sample was not screened for the presence of Asian carp DNA until this fall, and the DNR did not get word of the positive result until last week, said Mike Staggs, DNR’s fishery director.
The sample was the only positive found among the 282 water samples taken from Wisconsin’s Lake Michigan waters this year as part of an invasive fish survey conducted by government crews and researchers from the University of Notre Dame and The Nature Conservancy. Fifty of those of samples were taken in the Sturgeon Bay area.
Nobody is sure at this point what to make of this single piece of microscopic evidence.
There are several potential sources for the genetic scraps, including boat hulls, bird feces, or contaminated bait buckets. It could, of course, also signal the presence of a live fish.”
Read the complete article at the link above for more information about the study.
November 4th, 2013 by Irene Miles
Earlier this year, Anjanette Riley and Laura Kammin from IISG participated in one of several research excursions on the Great Lakes, collecting samples to analyze the microplastic content of the water. Related research was recently published, and the findings are surprising.
“Take a dip in lakes Erie, Huron, or Superior and you will be swimming in more than just water. According to a recently published study, these lakes contain an unexpectedly large amount of floating plastic debris. Even more surprising, much of what the researchers found were microplastic fragments and pellets like the kind used in toothpastes and facial and body scrubs. At less than one millimeter, these tiny pieces of plastic are too small to be filtered out at wastewater treatment facilities before the water is released into the lakes.
Researchers from 5 Gyres Institute and State University of New York (SUNY) Fredonia made the discovery in 2012 after collecting a total of 21 samples from the lakes. They found plastics in all but one sample. Of the three lakes, Lake Erie had the highest concentrations of plastics, roughly 90 percent of the total amount measured. The authors speculate that the high concentrations may be the result of currents carrying the plastics from the cities of Detroit, Cleveland, and Erie. Back in the lab, further inspection revealed that along with the microplastics, eight of the samples contained coal ash and coal fly ash (produced by coal-burning power plants).”
Read the complete post at the link above.
October 31st, 2013 by Irene Miles
The Michigan City real-time monitoring buoy, jointly owned and operated by Illinois-Indiana Sea Grant and the Purdue University Department of Civil Engineering, is out of the water for the 2013 season. This year, the buoy was deployed for 154 days, reporting data every 10 minutes around-the-clock. Over 3,400 people visited the buoy website during deployment, with an average of 18 hits per day. As one user put it, “Many, many of us have found the information as nothing less than terrific! Sailors like myself, fisherman like my dock neighbor, and so many pleasure boaters from Michigan City, Burns Harbor like to know what to expect once we leave the harbors.”
Buoy-watchers will have more to look forward to in 2014, as this winter the buoy will be getting an upgrade. Thanks in part to a grant from the Indiana Department of Natural Resources Lake Michigan Coastal Program awarded to IISG’s Tomas Hӧӧk, the buoy will broadcast real-time temperatures at different depths during the 2014 season and beyond. The buoy has always collected surface water temperature, but now it will also collect temperatures approximately every three feet from the surface to the bottom of the lake.
“We are very excited to install this chain of temperature loggers”, said Carolyn Foley, IISG assistant research coordinator who will help implement the new chain. “A number of groups told us they would use this information, from kayakers wanting to know if it’s warm enough to go for a paddle to anglers wanting to know where the best fishing will be.”
In addition to installing the new temperature loggers, IISG education staffers Terri Hallesy and Robin Goettel will work with Indiana educators to develop data-based lesson plans. IISG outreach staff, including Angela Archer and Leslie Dorworth, will also attend at least one outdoor show in northwestern Indiana to get direct feedback on ways to improve the buoy website for future seasons.
We would like to hear from anyone who uses the buoy data, particularly anglers, paddlers, and others who use southern Lake Michigan for recreation, as well as educators interested in using buoy data in their classrooms. If you 1) are an educator in grades 8-12 interested in participating in a workshop to acquire data sets for teaching and to develop lesson plans with buoy data, 2) have feedback related to improving the buoy website, and/or 3) would like to suggest an outdoor show for us to attend, please send us an email (iisg@purdue.edu) with “Buoy feedback” in the subject line. We expect to redeploy buoy in mid-May 2014.
Special thanks to the staff of the Indiana DNR Michigan City Field Office for their help deploying and retrieving the buoy.
October 23rd, 2013 by Irene Miles
The Great Lakes are beautiful, of course, but it’s not often that we get a view of the Lakes that lets us see them in a different way. That’s just what happened a week and a half ago, though, when astronaut Karen Nyberg shared a picture she took of the Great Lakes – from outer space.
“Last Sunday, Oct. 13, American astronaut Karen Nyberg tweeted this excellent photograph of the Great Lakes taken on Aug. 23 from her vantage point orbiting the Earth aboard the International Space Station.
She posted the image on Twitter about 4:40 p.m., generating a cascade of re-tweets. As spectacular photos are wont to do, the image has spent the meantime making rounds on Facebook and other social media platforms.
The image shows four of the five Great Lakes. The sun’s glint brightens lakes Erie and Ontario to the east, while lakes Michigan and Huron are seen in shades of deeper blue. Lake Superior and most of Michigan’s Upper Peninsula are not in the frame.”
Check out the picture at the link in the quote and some additional photos from Karen Nyberg included in the MLive.com link.
October 22nd, 2013 by Irene Miles
Allison Neubauer, a University of Illinois Senior, was a summer intern with IISG’s Kristin TePas. Among the projects Allison worked on, she was part of the effort to develop a new website for the research vessel Lake Guardian. She wrote in to tell us more about her work this summer and her plans for the future following this internship experience.
“As an indecisive, undeclared sophomore I enrolled in a course titled Environmental Sustainability. Though I registered with low expectations, I found myself completely captivated by the readings and discussions we had in class. By the end of the semester I knew environmental sustainability was a passion I wanted to pursue, and I declared a major in Earth, Society, and the Environment. I also added a Geography and GIS Major and Business Minor along the way. Studying and working in these fields has afforded me the opportunity to engage in a wide range of academic and extracurricular experiences that have truly shaped my outlook on the world and secured my commitment to responsibly addressing environmental issues.
My internship with the Illinois-Indiana Sea Grant this summer has been the most rewarding experience of my collegiate career thus far. As the Great Lakes Education Intern I worked under the leadership of my mentor Kristin TePas to develop a website for the U.S. EPA research vessel Lake Guardian that effectively communicates the ship’s research and educational activities to the general public. The Lake Guardian is a unique and extremely valuable resource that has facilitated Great Lakes research for over 25 years, which in turn promotes better understanding and awareness of environmental issues affecting the lakes.
Kristin and I, through the creation of a user friendly Lake Guardian website, hope to expose teachers, students, and the general public to current Great Lakes research projects and inspire communication between scientists and their communities. By interviewing our target audience we determined what people wanted to see on the website and then developed some of the items they requested, including a ship specifications chart, science equipment videos, an ‘Ask a Scientist’ form, FAQ page, Science and Marine Career videos, as well as a YouTube channel and Flickr gallery to give a sense of life and work on the ship. The overarching goal is for the Lake Guardian site to be a fun and engaging way to compel people to be invested in the health and vitality of the Great Lakes.
My experiences this summer have opened my eyes to the importance of protecting the Great Lakes, which had not previously been in the forefront of my environmental concerns. Even growing up in Chicago I took Lake Michigan for granted because I did not understand how fragile the Great Lakes ecosystem truly is, or how critical the Lakes are to people’s livelihoods. Increasing awareness is vital to conserving the Great Lakes, and my position with Illinois-Indiana Sea Grant this summer gave me great exposure to environmental outreach. I have thoroughly enjoyed my work, especially all the valuable input I received from an assortment of teachers, scientists, Lake Guardian crew, and Sea Grant staff. This internship has been an excellent growing experience for me. I have vastly improved my communication, planning, and organizing skills as well as enhanced my understanding of the Great Lakes.”
Allison is one of four interns who worked with IISG this summer.
October 21st, 2013 by Irene Miles
Each of the Great Lakes is a natural wonder, but the basic facts of their formation and location also makes them dangerous. Each year swimmers and boaters struggle with dangers from weather and riptides.
“According to the National Weather Service, there were seven fatalities and 14 rescues on the Great Lakes caused at least partially by currents in the water. Lake Michigan had the most incidents as is typically the case. There are a few reasons why Lake Michigan is the most dangerous year after year. First is the combination of highest population and one of the warmer waters. Second is the shape of the lake which makes it conducive to rip currents.
This year did not have as many fatalities and rescues as compared to past years. The main reason for this was the colder summer keeping the number of swimmers down.
While currents caused by rip tides are dangerous, the most often cited reason for a rescue is structural. Piers and other structures make dangerous currents and create locations for injuries.
While the swimming season may be over, another very dangerous time on the Great Lakes is here. Fall is a season I’ve found to be most dangerous, especially on Saginaw Bay. Some duck hunters and fishers take unwise risks just to shoot a duck or catch a fish.”
Read the rest of the article at the link above, and learn more about how to avoid some of the dangers from rip currents with the National Weather Service’s rip current awareness website.
October 11th, 2013 by Irene Miles
Alex Valencic’s fourth-grade class may be several hours away from Lake Michigan, but the lake and its issues are still front-and-center. Students here spent part of September digging into the biology of Great Lakes fish, and last week they presented their discoveries to an audience of classmates joined by IISG’s Robin Goettel and Anjanette Riley.
The presentations covered a spectrum of native and non-native species—lake trout, Eurasian ruffe, Atlantic salmon, round goby, black herring, and more. And it was clear that these fourth-graders had become experts in their chosen species. They talked about where their fish lives, its life cycle, what it eats, and what eats it. Several students showed how their fish have been affected by invasive species such as round goby and sea lamprey, which one student referred to as “an alien in the Great Lakes.” Those who chose invasive species also explained how they spread and taught the class what they could do to prevent future invasions. Others talked about the impact of overfishing and pollution on their species and the food web as a whole. At the end of their presentation, each student was peppered with questions like “how many times does your fish lay eggs?” and “what kind of plankton does it eat?”
It was also clear that the students were excited to share what they had learned. Many said they enjoyed learning about the shape and size of their fish, while others liked knowing about the predators of the Great Lakes. A handful even said their favorite part of the project was researching and presenting.
Mr. Valencic got the idea to bring Great Lakes issues to his class at Wiley Elementary School in Urbana, IL after spending a week aboard the U.S. EPA R/V Lake Guardian this summer for the annual Shipboard and Shoreline Workshop. During the week, he and 14 other formal and non-formal educators worked alongside scientists as they collected data on Lake Ontario. This year, participants collected samples from different locations to monitor water quality, studied species at the bottom of the food web, and learned more about organisms living on the lakebed. Sea Grant officials on board paired hand-on research with curriculum activities to help teachers better incorporate Great Lakes science into their classrooms.
Examining fish biology is one of two inquiry-based research projects Mr. Valencic has lined up for this year. Overall he hopes to use what he learned this summer to teach his students more about how aquatic species interact with each other and their environments.
September 26th, 2013 by Irene Miles
Michigan Radio’s Here and Now recently discussed the issue of Asian carp and the State of Michigan’s preparations to prevent and fight the spread of the invasive fish.
From WBUR:
“Asian carp, an invasive and destructive fish, have spread through the Mississippi, Ohio, Illinois and Missouri rivers. In total, the fish are affecting more than 20 states from Louisiana to South Dakota.
Under the right conditions, it could take as few as a dozen Asian carp to establish a population in the Great Lakes. That’s according to a report published this month by scientists in Ontario.
If they’re correct, the risk of even just a handful of Asian carp escaping into the Great Lakes could be more significant than officials had planned.
From the Here & Now Contributors Network, Lindsey Smith of Michigan Radio reports on how the Department of Natural Resources in Michigan is getting ready to face off with this invader.”
Listen to the program or read the transcript at the link above.
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