Great Lakes Echo

Six-pack trout

Andrew Norman — Tue, 16 Mar 2010 19:05:53 +0000

A University of Rhode Island scientist may have developed a way to solve the impending Asian carp crisis in the Great Lakes: Pump up the natives. Check out this University of Rhode Island video. Read more here.

Logging off: Breaking and rebuilding desk jockeys

Andrew Norman — Tue, 16 Mar 2010 15:38:18 +0000

The rules were explicit: “There will be no women or whining, blogging or Tweeting. “There will be whiskey, blood, rocks, fires, snot rockets, swearing, heavily peppered meats, and probably a night or two of freezing our tails off,” the e-mail read. Can four well-domesticated, NPR- listening, chair-swiveling journalists, pushed until they bust like cheap jump drives, turn into steel filing cabinets? It took two planning sessions at local dive bars, dozens of e-mail conversations and online chats before we set out to see. We did it under the auspices of the newly formed ...

Moose populations decline in Minnesota, Ontario

Rachael Gleason — Mon, 15 Mar 2010 22:45:51 +0000

Warmer temperatures may be the cause of declining moose populations in northeast Minnesota. Moose numbers have dropped by 15 percent over a five-year period, according to an annual survey by the Minnesota Department of Natural Resources. The agency estimates that there were 7,600 moose in January 2009. That number dropped to 5,500 this year.

Cool maps of deformed Great Lakes

Rachael Gleason — Mon, 15 Mar 2010 11:12:10 +0000

Most people love Lake Michigan. The 17th century German mapmaker Herman Moll isn’t most people. His depictions of Lake Superior and Lake Huron dwarf the region’s favorite in a 1711 map of “ye North Parts of America.” The historical map is one of many offered by greatlakesmaps.org, a collaborative project of Wisconsin’s Water Library, the University of Wisconsin Sea Grant program and other Wisconsin institutions. The 1711 map may not be geographically accurate — last time I checked Lake Huron wasn’t heart-shaped — but it’s revealing. The ...

MONDAY MASHUP: Build your own Great Lakes map

Rachael Gleason — Mon, 15 Mar 2010 11:11:26 +0000

Explore the Great Lakes on your own terms with this customizable map-building tool. The Great Lakes Information Network’s interactive map comprises data from a variety of regional agencies and organizations. You can use it to map a dozen topics as diverse as Great Lakes wildlife, climatology, inland waters. Each topic has a list of sub groups like the distribution of zebra mussels or trout streams.

Lake politics: Obama to ban fishing?

Karessa Weir — Fri, 12 Mar 2010 12:14:33 +0000

The Internet rumor mill was working overtime this week, with stories, columns and tweets flying around that the Obama administration was going to ban recreational fishing in the Great Lakes. It all began with a column on ESPN.com by Robert Montgomery that baldly stated: “The Obama administration has ended public input for a federal strategy that could prohibit U.S. citizens from fishing some of the nation’s oceans, coastal areas, Great Lakes, and even inland waters.” He cites “industry experts” – the industry being sport fishing – as warning that NOAA’s Ocean Policy ...

Marijuana farms trash public lands, threaten public and ecology

Andrew Norman — Fri, 12 Mar 2010 11:47:22 +0000

Mexican drug trafficking organizations are expanding east, cultivating near Great Lakes states' large consumer bases like Detroit and Chicago, police say. It’s an often violent, lucrative form of manifest destiny in reverse.

Animating the Lake Huron ice bridge breakup

Jeff Gillies — Thu, 11 Mar 2010 12:56:41 +0000

A huge mass of ice at the southern tip of Lake Huron has the Canadian Coast Guard worried, according to the London Free Press and Port Huron Times Herald. Ice builds up there every year, but a warm spell could break up the mass into chunks too big to flow through the St. Clair River. That happened in 1984 and caused big problems. The Times Herald has a cool interactive panoramic photo of the ice from the Blue Water Bridge. But suckers for satellite imagery should check out NOAA’s Great Lakes Coast ...

Great Lakes waterfront report: Progress stymied on fish consumption

Capital News Service — Thu, 11 Mar 2010 00:21:33 +0000

A recent report rates Michigan's progress in lowering the risk of eating fish as poor. Officials blame the failure to reduce the atmospheric deposition of mercury and on PCB contaminants. And stormwater runoff and sewage overflows are an increasing concern.

The other Great Lakes

Karessa Weir — Wed, 10 Mar 2010 12:40:00 +0000

Ever Google “Great Lakes”? As part of my job as links hunter for Great Lakes Echo, I will run searches for Great Lakes stories through Google News to catch some of the more obscure publications that I don’t normally check. Google has been great about sending me some interesting reads. But occasionally it also sends me half way around the world. The Great Lakes of Africa are a system of seven lakes spread through three river basins. It is dominated by Lake Victoria, which is the continent’s largest lake and the third largest ...