Great Lakes Now

Nibi Chronicles: Protecting the protectors

7 min read

Nibi Chronicles: Protecting the protectors

“Nibi Chronicles,” a monthly Great Lakes Now feature, is written by Staci Lola Drouillard. A Grand Portage Ojibwe direct descendant, she lives in Grand Marais on Minnesota’s North Shore of Lake Superior. Her nonfiction books “Walking the Old Road: A People’s History of Chippewa City and the Grand Marais Anishinaabe” and “Seven Aunts” were published 2019 and 2022, and the children’s story “A Family Tree” in 2024.

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Great Lakes Now

The History of the Button Industry’s Impact on Freshwater Mussels

8 min read

The History of the Button Industry’s Impact on Freshwater Mussels

Ryan Schwegman is a relocation specialist but don’t ask for his help if you’re moving, unless you are an endangered species.

Schwegman is COO of BioSurvey Group, LLC. in Oxford, Ohio. He manages a team of commercial and scientific divers who travel across the Eastern United States, relocating threatened and endangered species before river restoration projects begin.

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Great Lakes Now Lake Erie

Walleye Numbers are Down in Lake Erie

8 min read

Walleye Numbers are Down in Lake Erie

Ohio Division of Wildlife (ODW) officials have released their 2024 trawl survey indexes for Lake Erie’s two most-sought sportfish: yellow perch and walleye. This year’s results bring an end to a streak of wildly successful hatches for walleye. For yellow perch two of Ohio’s three management zones were above average, with the third zone down by 70% over last year.  

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Great Lakes Now

I Speak for the fish: Sammy the red-nosed sucker

1 min read

I Speak for the fish: Sammy the red-nosed sucker

To celebrate the 60th anniversary of stop-motion animated film Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer, I Speak for the Fish columnist Kathy Johnson creates a whimsical remix of the classic holiday jingle. Check out her previous columns.

You know darters and daces and pickerel and gar
Catfish and chub and cisco and char
But do you recall
The most famous fish of them all?

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Great Lakes Now Michigan

Great Lakes Moment: Michigan’s Port of Monroe fosters a blue economy that welcomes wildlife

6 min read

Great Lakes Moment: Michigan’s Port of Monroe fosters a blue economy that welcomes wildlife

Great Lakes Moment is a monthly column written by Great Lakes Now Contributor John Hartig. Publishing the author’s views and assertions does not represent endorsement by Great Lakes Now or Detroit PBS.

Historically, the prevailing thinking was that society could have either a healthy economy or healthy biodiversity, but not both.

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