A Bigger Picture Is Needed Now

Humans have a long history we can now follow and analyze. We have gathered so much information on the natural world that we have affected in so many ways. What good are these inventories if we do use them to solve problems we have created … I mean REALLY use them to restore and solve the bigger problem … not just inventory to monitor change.

This is the time to do this. We cannot wait for technology to solve the problems we have created … or can we? I expect we will analyze the effectiveness or destructiveness of any innovative technology just as we have done with the inventory of the natural world. We need to become faster at applying methods and do more observation with a wider eye as a goal.

Conservation of our natural resources has taken so many routes in the last one hundred years with specialized groups beating their own drums, but all have the same motto that habitat is the key to each of their own focus. On one end we have groups that want to protect a single species and realize a specific plant community needs to be protected. On the other end we have groups that only see maintaining a population for the value of the hunt and that habitat is only a second thought … but needs to figure it out to take the animal into a possession of it.

So, we are developing technology and tools to help both ends of this spectrum. Satellite tracking with even the tiniest transmitter can now track a butterfly across the continent without even seeing the insect. Game cameras and aquatic sonar allow hunters and fisherman to pursue wildlife without encountering animal or fish. We have more knowledge but with less connection to the land. With these actions we are getting glimpses of the bigger picture but are being removed from the actual view of the so-called habitat … let alone the bigger picture of how habitat is being destroyed or actual actions that could restore habitat and what it supports that organisms we are so enthusiastic about.

Again, we need to think locally and use recent technologies and history to create solutions to effects man has wrought on nature. This is not an easy task as it will only get harder as human culture is increasingly removed from nature by this technology. One must praise the environmental educators that are doing their best to connect our next generations to nature. But who is to lead these next generations to the solutions?

My personal goal is to restore the walleye populations in the Northwoods, but it does not stand alone by single species management. Walleyes must survive in suitable habitats that must be in place from birth to spawning for their circle of life. This includes the habitats of other organisms and fish they prey on and are preyed upon by. Within a few days of hatching from eggs on a rock rubble spawning bed, they begin to feed and if they do not find the right size zooplankton, they cannibalize each other!
This zooplankton is concentrated in the deepest part of a lake. How do fish connect these necessities to be recruited into the fish population and grow to an adult to spawn? Is the fry carried by currents to deeper water? What is preying on the eggs, fry, and fingerlings on the way to deeper water?

These questions stem from looking at the bigger picture. The facts that walleye cannibalize shortly after birth and again after they grow beyond zooplankton are observations made in the fish hatcheries … which shows the value of historical findings. Historical life history sampling of indicates that Northwood’s walleyes move from zooplankton to yellow perch. What limits yellow perch production in the same lake? Again, back to the habitat … two species, early spawning in a lake, the same zooplankton needs.

If we look at the bigger picture again what were our Northwoods lake’s like before the great pressures of human development and the late 1800’s logging? A book witnessing paddling and portaging from lake Superior to Lac Du Flambeau in 1850 described the lakes choked and surrounded by timbered stands of black spruce, tamarack, and white cedar. Habitat of these rot resistant tree species provided cover throughout the lake for all species of fish and supporting organisms.

So, this is the practical ecological method to the madness of restoring the fisheries of the Northwoods. Place woody habitat made of these tree species near the deep water just above the thermocline for all fish to use. But more importantly, help restore our failing walleye fishery by using portable shoreline fish hatcheries that are near or on spawning beds that maintain the genetics of the lake and scatter the hatched tiny fish over these structures.

Let us understand technology and knowledge of our lakes and fishery to make more intelligent decisions so all fish grow well. I believe in this age of artificial intelligence we have the tools we only need for positive changes in the direction of our resource management with cooperation of local communities.