Visitors to Lake Erie beaches have been puzzled by a flood of dead fish – particularly sheepshead, also known as freshwater drum – with thousands washing ashore in areas near Port Bruce and Port Stanley, Ontario. Experts suggest the die-offs were due to upwelling in hypoxic areas of the lake. Read the full story by the London Free Press.
A Chicago water commissioner hopes to put to rest the belief that Great Lakes water, now, or at any point in the future, will be used to solve the water woes of the western United States. Read the full story by the Chicago Tribune.
Several journalists recently gathered at the Ohio Sea Grant/Ohio State University Stone Laboratory research facility for an annual overview of a multitude of issues affecting the world’s 11th largest freshwater lake. Read the full story by The Blade.
If you’ve walked along the Milwaukee lakefront in the past few weeks, you might have suddenly found yourself amid a swarm of dragonflies. The insects are making their yearly migration south, which includes a several-week stretch passing through Milwaukee. Read the full story by the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel.
Four piping Plover fledglings graduated out of captivity and made it onto a northern Michigan beach this summer, joining a record-breaking nesting season across the Great Lakes. A total of 124 wild chicks fledged, or grew wings large enough to fly. Read the full story by MLive.
The Great Lakes Way is an interconnected set of greenways and water trails stretching from Port Huron, Michigan to Toledo, Ohio on western Lake Erie. Its purpose is to help reconnect people with continentally significant natural resources, promote outdoor recreation with its many benefits, and foster a stewardship ethic. Read the full story by Great Lakes Now.
This week, blue-green algae blooms were spotted in the waters of Lake Superior in St. Louis Bay and Little Sand Bay in the Apostle Islands National Lakeshore. Those sightings followed a bloom spotted last week off Barker’s Island in Superior, Wisconsin. While common in inland rivers and ponds, the algae are fairly new to Lake Superior. Read the full story by Wisconsin Public Radio.
Great Lakes winters are trending warmer and the storm systems are wetter, according to research from the University of Michigan. Read the full story by WMUK – Kalamazoo, MI.
A Presque Isle County steel fabricator has won a $5.85 million contract to build the R/V Steelhead II, a new fisheries research boat, for the Michigan Department of Natural Resources. The 66-foot, steel-hulled vessel will replace the S/V Steelhead, a 56-year-old survey vessel used to gather Great Lakes fishery management data. Read the full story by MLive.
More than 154,000 comments have been submitted on the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers’ environmental assessment of Enbridge’s proposed 41-mile reroute of its Line 5 around the Bad River Band of Lake Superior Chippewa’s land. Interested parties have until Aug. 30 to submit comments. Read the full story by the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel.
In Ontario, toxic blue-green algae that closed public access to the water along Beach Boulevard this week is the first such discovery along Hamilton’s stretch of Lake Ontario in at least a decade, if not longer. Read the full story by The Hamilton Spectator.
The volunteer lead Great Lakes piping plover monitor at Chicago’s Montrose Beach was recognized by the Illinois Department of Natural Resources as one of 11 outstanding volunteers of the year. Read the full story by WTTW – Chicago, IL.