Lake Huron

“Whitefish have been one of the species to feel the biggest impacts from invasive species such as zebra and quagga mussels. These mussels have reduced the available food for whitefish to be able to eat at very early life stages . . . As a cold-adapted species with spawning dependent on temperature, it is uncertain what will happen to whitefish populations with continually rising water temperatures in the Great Lakes.”

"What has happened in the decade since the crash of Lake Huron's two dominant species — invasive Atlantic alewives and the giant Pacific salmon planted to gobble them up — is a remarkable story of nature's resilience. Efforts by lake managers to sustain the invasive alewives to keep the salmon fishing rolling had, for decades, pushed native species to the fringes. But when the alewife dwindled and the salmon followed, there was an almost instant surge in native lake trout, walleye, smallmouth bass, chubs and emerald shiners."

The Enbridge pipeline was struck by an anchor from a tugboat, threatening additional future ruptures of contaminants in the Great Lakes: “It’s going to affect the wildlife, ecosystems as well as the tourism industry that live on the island. You would have shorelines covered in oil. It’s going to take a monumental effort to clean that up."

“If there was an off-key moment during the otherwise flawlessly executed trip tothe U.S. Capitol this spring by the new Canadian prime minister, Justin Trudeau, it might have come when he was cornered by Rep. Debbie Dingell. ‘We never want to see nuclear waste in the Great Lakes,’ the freshman Democrat from Michigan sternly told Trudeau . . . A few weeks earlier, his administration delayed an expected final ruling on whether Ontario Power Generation (OPG) could blast an area twice as big as the White House in a hole as deep as four Washington Monuments and then dump and seal inside 50 years’ worth of low- and intermediate-level radioactive waste amassed by the province’s three nuclear power plants . . . The planned Deep Geological Repository is controversial in part because it would sit about a mile from the bottom of Lake Huron. And that has prompted widespread activism throughout the Great Lakes region among those who see the concept as too risky for the 40 million people who rely on this, the largest freshwater network in the world.”

“The federal government is paying to cap two leaking oil wells on a reserve on Manitoulin Island in Ontario. Officials with the Wikwemikong Unceded Indian Reserve say it’s a start, but more must be done to protect the community’s water source. The wells are two of about 40 abandoned drilled wells scattered across the reserve that were constructed from the 1860s to the 1950s... ‘The natural watershed area for our community’s drinking source [is] in the bay. We’re right in the heart of the oil field, so the contamination can eventually reach our drinking water supply for our community.’ . . . Wikwemikong resident Eugene Kimewon, 56, said he remembers fetching oil from the leaky pipe on his family’s property when he was a child. ‘[There were] pools [of oil] around outside of the pipe, he said. ‘[You’d] see it there and sometimes you can’t go closer, because if you go closer you’re just going to sink down.’”

“On Tuesday, U.S. Sen. Debbie Stabenow, D-Mich, announced $550,000 in funding to support existing programs that farmers can apply for to implement conservation practices in the Saginaw Bay watershed’s 22 county region . . . The funding is the second federal initiative in the last month that aims to clean up the bay. The first was announced last month and was made available through the Great Lakes Restoration Initiative. Up to $5.6 million is available through that initiative . . . In recent years, the Saginaw Bay has seen mucky beaches and poor water quality, believed linked to run off from farms and urban sewer overflows. River bank erosion also carries polluted sediment into the bay.”

"As the birds’ contaminated bodies wash ashore, the botulism toxin can then spread to land scavengers such as coyotes and foxes."

“The sandhill crane is the oldest living species of bird on earth . . . The greater sandhill crane formerly bred on the shores of Lake St. Clair but has not been seen there since the draining of that lake’s surrounding wetlands. Although nearly extirpated as a breeding species from the whole basin in the 1800s, it has made a remarkable comeback: it is commonly found on Manitoulin Island in August, and every October and November, more than 30,000 sandhills can be seen gathering at the Jasper-Paluki Fish and Game Area in Indiana, just south of Lake Michigan, arriving from Minnesota, Wisconsin, Michigan, and Ontario to begin their fall migration to Georgia and Florida.”

“The population of prothonotaries has declined seriously since the 1960s, largely because of loss of habitat in South America but also because of fluctuations in lake levels in the Great Lakes basin, which has compromised Carolinian wetlands . . . the warbler’s home base. In Ontario, where 150 mating pairs were counted in the 1930s, the population plummeted to only 10 pairs in 1996. Fortunately, designation as an endangered species has led to habitat protection in Ontario and nesting-box programs in Ohio and Michigan that have helped nearly to double the population in the past decade.”

“The Great Lakes . . . darkly reflect how a global tradefest can turn into an ecological make over. What was once a distinct North American body of water full of Arctic grayling and Atlantic salmon is now little more than a degraded multicultural aquarium. In the last 200 years, 182 alien fish, mollusks, algae, fleas, and plankton have invaded and resorted the chemistry and biology of the Great Lakes."

"Recovery of the species has been deemed “not feasible” as there is no reproductive potential, its primary threats cannot be avoided or mitigated, and there are no recovery techniques that are applicable to its current circumstances."

"The eastern coast of Georgian Bay has a complex topography with an extensive shoreline, along which are found numerous islands, deep coves, fiords and river mouths. It is thought to be the world’s largest freshwater archipelago comprising a mix of open waters, sheltered bays, coastal wetlands, exposed bedrock shores, sandy and cobble beaches, riparian vegetation and upland Boreal Needle leaf forests on the mainland… The rich mosaic of interconnected habitats, combined with the inaccessibility of much of the area, serves to support and protect a high level of biodiversity. The reserve hosts over 100 species of animals and plants considered to be species at risk in Canada."

“My concerns have been some of the same concerns our elders talked about for a number of years. It relates to government policies where they want to play God and start tinkering with the ecosystem when we know we can’t control it.”

“I realized, too, that in the nesting season we no longer seemed to have a bird that I had seen so frequently on other Huron shores and formerly here — the spotted sandpiper. I suppose the summer activity along our stretch has grown too great. The sandpipers can’t find undisturbed places to feed and nest . . . [And] I (and the rest of the conservation community) am worried about the piping plover, a small, pale shorebird, which, though never common, once nested on many Great Lakes beaches and now is perhaps entirely gone from Lake Huron.”