Time Honored Ecological Management
Nature or Mother Earth has a plan that it has been conducting long before humans started influencing it. It is based on time honored factions of evolution and increased diversity of species. Humanity by eliminating species that they are not yet aware of … or those they are aware of … are derailing this plan. But human actions in attempt to manage resources for their own benefit may be even more destructive. This is especially true when science later proves that our original management actions are detrimental to the preservation of a species.
Science may come to understand a single species or more recent understanding of the ecosystem that supports that species and a plethora of other species. Natural resource management needs to step up and shift their management to make sure this understanding is used to solve problems and cross traditional fields of resource and environmental management. This must go beyond single species or single focused ecosystem management … it must pay attention to natural history and admit humans are not going to improve on nature.
This is what the Walleye Restoration Foundation, Inc.is all about. Our focus is on restoring a failing fishery in the lakes of the northern forest of Wisconsin, Minnesota, and Michigan. We spent time understanding the life histories of fisheries species that live in our lakes and rivers. We have spent time understanding what features of a lake ecosystem make these life histories possible. We have spent time understanding how human management of these lakes and fisheries has progressed … and now must admit the mistakes in the management we have made. We are ready to move forward to correct them and add new ways of thinking to our management.
The Foundation is focused on increasing the walleye population to the recognized sustainability levels based on the resource information created by the Wisconsin Department of Natural Resources, The University of Wisconsin system, the Great Lakes Indian Fish & Wildlife Commission. We are utilizing historical resource development data that spans more than a century. We are focused on action not data collection.
The Walleye Restoration Foundation, Inc. recognizes that current hatcheries,
propagation and stocking methods have been a detriment to our fisheries in the lakes and waterways of the Northwoods. We have designed a PORTABLE SHORELINE HATCHERY system that recognizes the preservation of genetic integrity of the fish present in a lake. We have paired this system with a DEEP-WATER THERMOCLINE HABITAT that is necessary for the successful restoration of an ecosystem that once functioned to produce a sustainable ecosystem and fishery.
Our foundation is working to bring government natural resource management closer to those in the public who live in lake communities and care about them. We all want to work together to solve aquatic resource problems going beyond just monitoring and documenting. In general, our Non-Profit mission is to restore our aquatic systems and educate collaborators how to do it.