There goes another one!
Two of our four Automated Fish Tagging trailers have left for fish hatcheries to start the 2022 tagging season. This trailer is headed for Jake Wolf Memorial Fish Hatchery operated by the Illinois Department of Natural Resources for the next 10 days to coded-wire tag and/or fin clip 180,000 Chinook salmon and 60,000 Steelhead trout. The program is slated to fin clip and/or coded-wire tag about 9 million fish from now until November!
Video shows a long white trailer being pulled by a red truck leaving the USFWS parking lot. Video by Shannon Cressman/USFWS.
Before Pacific salmonids were introduced into the Great Lakes, lake trout were the top predator of the food chain. Due to overfishing in the 1800s and early 1900s, the invasion of non-native sea lamprey, and other factors, lake trout populations plummeted in the mid-1900s. Through extensive stocking programs, lake trout have begun to recover in many of the Great Lakes. This year marks the beginning of an acoustic telemetry project focusing on lake trout movement in the Northern Refuge, a major spawning complex in Northern Lake Michigan around the Beaver Island Archipelago. The goal of this project is to tag adults and track their movement patterns to see where they move, when they enter the spawning areas, how long they stay, and when they leave. Transmitters are surgically implanted into the fish and communicate with an array of receivers in the area, logging when a fish was in the vicinity. Fish are also marked with an external orange tag so that tagged individuals are easily identifiable if caught.
Video Description: Tagged lake trout swimming in a blue tank on the back deck of the R/V Smith.
Video Credit-:Jacob Synnott/USFWS
While an employee was out watching the salmon migrating up the Kewaunee River, they stumbled upon this “fearsome” creature on the boardwalk. While its predators may think that it is a small snake waiting to strike, this is actually a harmless tiger swallowtail caterpillar. This species has developed eye spots and a swaying motion to confuse and help fend off potential predators from eating them. Members of these species can stay in the caterpillar stage for around 3-4 weeks, and have the ability to overwinter to then turn into a beautiful butterfly in the spring.
Video Description: A brown caterpillar with spots that look like small eyes. Video Description: Same brown caterpillar sways back and forth to intimidate predators.
Video Credit: Jacob Synnott/USFWS
Our next piece of “Weird Gear Week” will actually feature 4 pieces of gear that have measured water velocity for decades, but have seen significant upgrades in the data quality. Water velocity can tell us a lot about the habitat, answering questions related to aquatic connectivity and spawning habitat quality. Historically, neutrally buoyant objects (like an orange) were timed over a set of distance, giving a feet/second measurement. These measurements were repeated 3 times and averaged to get a flow measurement for the site. As time progressed, the field transitioned from analog to digital measurements, detailed in the next post.
Video Description: A technician walks along a bank where a yellow measurement tape marking 10 feet has been laid. An orange is dropped, the technician starts and then stops a stopwatch on their phone once the orange passed 10 feet, measuring 12.89 seconds.
Video Credit: USFWS
Sometimes crews come across a structure where stream flow is inhibited and nearly impossible to measure due to impoundment of material at both the instream and outstream. When encountered they take a bit of time to intervene and remove the blockages.
Video description: Video showing the changes in stream flow before and after woody debris is removed from downstream of a culvert. In the before video there is heavy woody debris and detritus (leaf litter and muck) restricting outflow. In the after video there is a healthy outflow with riffles and a cascade of water from the structure.
Video and photo credit: Cliff Mason and Casey Coombs, USFWS
Did you know that garter snakes can climb trees? This one was encountered entering a cavern in an old tree. Most likely this snake was looking for something to eat or a reprieve from the sun.
Video Description: A black and yellow striped snake winds its way up a rough bark tree and eventually completely enters a hole in the tree.
Video Credit: Sharon Rayford/USFWS
Views from out boats:
The R/V Smith set out one hazy, smoke filled morning to a perfectly calm, glassy Lake Michigan. The only disturbance to the water was our wake.
Video Description: An opaque gray sky that matches the steely gray water is disturbed by one single wave that is generated by a boat passing through it. The rising orange sun reflects off the water.
Video Credit: Sharon Rayford/USFWS
Fall is that lovely time of year when the foliage starts to change, and crisp cool mornings are characteristic in Wisconsin.
One thing that remains unchanged however is the flow of streams. Members of the Habitat and Partnerships crew remain steadfast in the field despite declining water temperatures to survey dozens of culvert and bridge sites in streams scattered throughout northeastern Wisconsin.
Completing these surveys allows us to assign a pass-ability score for each stream and associated structure. A site can be considered a barrier, either at high-flow regimes, or at most or all flows or a non-barrier for fish passage.
Video description: A technician walks to the top of the downstream portion of a metal, corrugated culvert. There is a strong and consistent flow and a small cascade at the outlet flowing into a stream with well-defined banks.
Video credit: Cliff Mason/USFWS
Sometimes during the Aquatic Invasive Species crews’ monitoring work we come across a friendly native.
Video Description: Crew members can be seen here moving a juvenile Lake sturgeon back and forth inside a live well to stimulate the diffusion of oxygen across its gills
Video Credit: Cliff Mason, USFWS
We can’t do a Franken Fish Week without the vampire of the Great Lakes.
Here is a video of an invasive Sea Lamprey squirming on a survey table. You can see how many people confuse them with eels by their movements, however, one look at those teeth and you know what it is.
Video is of a Sea Lamprey moving on a white table. Video by Shannon Cressman/USFWS.
Zooplankton are tiny micro-organisms that provide the base of the aquatic food web. In this video, one person collects zooplankton using a small net in waist deep water while a second person stands still, the video is sped up from normal pace. At the end, a crewmember stands in waist deep water and holds up a white and blue fine-mesh sample net on a pole and a length of coiled black rope.
Video and image Credits: Sharon Rayford
FIeld crews from the Green Bay FWCO found a pair of staging American Brook Lampreys (Lethenteron appendix) at a road-stream crossing site! Sightings of these awesome freshwater oddities are rare. They are found in healthy, shallow, fast flowing streams. Here, you can see a female moving small pebbles to make a nest for its young and a male trying to mate with her. Unlike their invasive, parasitic cousins sea lamprey, American Brook Lamprey do not latch onto other fish. Instead, once they reach adulthood, they do not feed at all and die after spawning.
Video: underwater video of long, slender, brown/ silver-colored fish moving rocks from the bottom of a stream to create a spawning nest. Credit: Sean Cazier/ USFWS
Field season is underway and so is the Research Vessel Stanford H. Smith! This year we will be utilizing our new boat for gillnetting, trawling, hydroacoustics, and acoustic telemetry. In the video the R/V Smith is pulling into port at the Manitowoc Harbor. The birds (primarily herring gulls, ring-billed gulls, and Caspian terns) follow the boat in and dive into its wake to catch fish.
Video credit: Sharon Rayford/USFWS
These flying insects are midges, commonly known as lake flies! Although they are frustratingly accurate in their ability to fly into your mouth when you inhale, these critters are much less annoying than mosquitos and horse flies, no buzzing and absolutely no biting. These swarms of midges begin in late spring and their single intent is to reproduce before dying. These impressive hatches of midges provide an important spring food source for many animals, including birds, bats, frogs, and fish (though we would still prefer to not chew on them ourselves).
Video description: A black lake fly rests on a white vehicle. A calm morning at a sandy beach with a dock in the distance, with a swarm of flying black-bodied insects filling the screen.
Video and image credit: Sharon Rayford/USFWS
Larval lake whitefish occupy nearshore habitats for the first few months of their lives. During the first weeks, when they are little more than a swimming eyeball, they can be collected using a fine-mesh net. This video shows how a section of water is filtered by a net that is towed along by two crew members in shallow water.
Video Credit: Sharon Rayford/USFWS
Two of the many migratory fish in the Great Lakes, the longnose sucker and white sucker, begin their spawning run in the tributaries of Lake Michigan in mid-spring, once the water temperature conditions are right. Numbering in the thousands, this great surge of fish brings not only a spectacular sight but also crucial nutrients from the lake that help re-nourish coastal systems fresh from winters grip. Citizen scientists can help document and study this incredible annual phenomena by using the Great Lakes Fish Finder app to note when and where these fish are seen every spring!
Video: A large congregation of fish in shallow water, attempting to spawn over rocky substrate. Credit: Jacob Synnott/USFWS.
As spring warms, lake sturgeon begin migrating from the open waters back into rivers and streams to spawn. On the Menominee River, a fish passage structure helps these gigantic fish pass above the first two lowermost dams on the river. This provides an opportunity for biologists to collect biological data from these fish as passage occurs, as well as tag any fish needed for research.
Video: A rectangular fish lift rises, the door begins opening and water spills out into another tank. As the water drains, a large dark gray fish passes from the lift to the holding tank. Credit: Nathan Barton / USFWS
