Michigan’s Department of Natural Resources Fisheries Division received one-time funding of $350,000 for whitefish recovery from the state budget. The ailing species has undergone a rapid population decline in recent years, and for the first time, recovery efforts have a specific line in the state budget.
But officials said while the funding will help rescue some of the most vulnerable lake whitefish populations, it’s not enough to address the systemic ecosystem issues causing the decline.
Randy Claramunt, the state’s fisheries chief, said whitefish have struggled against several different invasive species introductions through the years.
“Populations were very strong until the 50’s and 60’s but when the sea lamprey invasion really hit hard, most populations declined,” he said. “They rebounded up until the time when the next big invasive introduction happened in the Great Lakes.”
Now, invasive zebra and quagga mussels have caused another decline in the population, but this time it’s a crisis, Claramunt said. He said the one-time funding shows legislators recognize the importance of the whitefish.
“It was driven by concerned lawmakers that recognized the problem and wanted to see some action,” he said.
But the funding is limited, and Claramunt said there are at least a dozen vulnerable whitefish stocks across the Great Lakes, many of which will not receive help this time around because others are even more sensitive.
“It’s a drop in the bucket when you look at the scale of the problem,” he said.
Nichole Keway Biber of the Little Traverse Bay Bands of Odawa Indians works for Clean Water Justice. She said whitefish are a culturally important species to the Anishinaabe tribes in Michigan.
Oral histories of the Anishinaabe and whitefish tell of a deep relationship, Biber said: “At a time of starvation, they decided to sacrifice themselves with the agreement that we’d survive as long as we make sure that they did."
She said human activities and invasive species have damaged the natural systems that kept whitefish alive until now and while the funding is necessary, the systemic causes of population decline needs to be funded and addressed.
“I think of it as kind of like seed saving,” she said. “Doing what we can to have enough whitefish to survive as we look toward the time where necessarily we’ll be collectively putting our focus on how the ecosystems become restored.”
Keway Biber said the one-time funding is also coming at a time when human activities are threatening the whitefish’s ability to re-populate. She said a project to move an oil and natural gas pipeline from the lakebed on the bottom of the Straits of Mackinac, to a tunnel under the straits, would strain the population.
Permits for the project were issued this week by state agencies, although it still needs further approvals to start construction.
“The tunnel project would put massive amounts of wastewater into the Great Lakes, right into the sensitive ecosystems where whitefish are already struggling and on the brink of collapse,” Keway Biber said.
The decline of whitefish in Michigan is largely attributed to rising populations of invasive mussels.
Claramunt said there is a bill proposed int the state Legislature that would supply the Great Lakes Fishery Commission with $500 million dollars over 10 years to combat the invasive mussels, but he is not counting on it passing any time soon.
Dan O’Keefe, Michigan Sea Grant southwest district extension educator, said research on mussel populations in western Lake Erie has shown a decrease in the species. This is likely due to predation by freshwater drum fish in the region.
The freshwater drum have crushing teeth in the back of their throat which makes eating shelled prey, like the invasive mussels, comparatively easy for them, he said.
There are other native fish in the Great Lakes that can eat mussels, but either their populations are too low to make a difference or the caloric benefit is not sustainable for them, O'Keefe said. (The shell gets in the way, he said.)
The freshwater drum can eat enough of the mussels to sustain itself and the biomass of mussels in western Lake Erie has decreased with populations on a downward trajectory, said O'Keefe. However, the freshwater drum only lives in shallow areas of the Great Lakes, limiting their ability to clear mussels.
Quagga mussels can live in deep water and have spread further into the Great Lakes where fish like the drum will not go.
Sturgeon also eat mussels and in certain cases, they can make up a significant amount of their diet, he said, but sturgeon prefer most other prey to the mussels. Their population is also not large enough to have a great impact on the mussel population.
Ashley Elgin, a research ecologist with the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, said mussel control is not possible in the Great Lakes region right now but agencies are focusing on the targeted removal in high value locations.
One strategy, pioneered by the Great Lakes Spawning Whitefish and Invasive Mussels Project, is to infuse carbon dioxide underneath a heavy mat on the lake bottom to smother the mussels, she said.
“We’re also looking at the use of underwater vehicles to be moving custom-designed implements on the bottom that are designed to remove mussels from the sediment and destroy them,” Elgin said.
Elgin said while native fish predation on mussels may not be a complete solution, it should be encouraged.
“If you can take advantage of natural native populations as being part of the control strategy, that makes a lot of sense and we could make it more effective,” she said.
