Catching and eating fish is a way of life for many people around the Great Lakes and connecting St. Lawrence River, but decades of industrial pollution have made it unsafe to eat too many, too often. The advice about how many and how often can vary wildly depending on which jurisdiction, even though the fish […]
Great Lakes Now
We’re going to need a bigger fishbowl
A tiny goldfish might look cute in a fishbowl on your shelf, but if released into the wild it can grow to a terrifying size and become a menace to the ecosystem. They eat pretty much anything and everything, root up plants causing the water to become cloudy and dark, and reproduce and grow so […]
Some banned pesticides fade from Great Lakes air, while others persist
Two recently banned pesticides have all but disappeared from the atmosphere around the Great Lakes, while others phased out decades ago are still hanging around. Read more in Great Lakes Now.
Lake sturgeon added to endangered list, but things are looking up
Lake sturgeon, one of the largest and oldest species of fish in the Great Lakes, are in more trouble than we thought. In December, the International Union for the Conservation of Nature downgraded its status from Least Concern to Endangered based on shrinking populations over the past three generations, which is between 250 and 300 […]
AI technology could be used to monitor invaders in the Great Lakes
Invasive zebra and quagga mussels are firmly established in the Great Lakes, and efforts to control them have proved mostly fruitless. But environmental managers still want to know where they are, how many there are and what they are up to, so they can predict how the ecosystem will be affected and protect vital infrastructure. […]
Lake heatwaves driven by human-caused climate change
Just like the atmosphere and the ocean, lakes can be subject to extreme spikes in temperature, and new research shows that the vast majority of these heatwaves over the past 25 years are the result of human-caused climate change. Read more in Great Lakes Now.
Study: Fish can recover from mercury pollution faster than thought
Mercury pollution remains a problem in many parts of the Great Lakes, but new research from Canada’s Experimental Lakes Area in northern Ontario shows that efforts to reduce the amount of mercury going into a lake can have quick and dramatic effects on the levels of the pollutant in fish populations. Read more in Great Lakes […]
Farm Protection: Ontario invests in projects to help farms improve Great Lakes water quality
The Ontario government is funding projects aimed at helping farmers and landowners preserve water quality of the Great Lakes watershed. More than $2.5 million was awarded to 19 projects that ranged from green infrastructure projects to helping spread good land management practices to reduce the amount of contaminants and excess nutrients, such as phosphorous, entering […]
Bacteria Cleanup: Should we let nature clean up oil spills?
Natural populations of oil-degrading bacteria could help to clean up freshwater rivers and lakes after spills from pipelines and trains, researchers have found after experiments that simulated spills in a Canadian lake. Read more in Great Lakes Now.
Lingering Chemicals: Legacy pollutants continue to haunt the Great Lakes
Long-lived chemicals that were banned years or even decades ago in the U.S. and Canada are still turning up in the bodies of fish and migrating terns in the Great Lakes, and they continue to affect the health of those threatened birds. Read more in Great Lakes Now.