GLFT Grant Library

This project seeks to increase awareness and understanding of the ecology of the Great Lakes in two ways. First, through hands-on experiences that teach youth stewardship and leadership skills; and Second, by installing a permanent watershed exhibit at the SEEDS Eco-Learning Center in Traverse City. These opportunities will support long-term sustainability of the Great Lakes through increased understanding of the general public, and by encouraging action and community engagement.

Yellow perch is an ecologically and economically important native species in Lake Michigan that is well below peak abundance. We propose to identify the proportion of yellow perch harvest in drowned river mouth lakes (lake-like habitats connecting a tributary to a large lake) that consists of migrants from Lake Michigan using a combination of isotopic and genetic analyses. This research will allow mangers to estimate stock contributions to harvest, which is critical for successful management.

One hypothesis for recent lake whitefish (LAW) population declines in Lakes Michigan and Huron is because of decreased food (zooplankton) for larval fish. However, relations between zooplankton and larval lake whitefish are poorly understood at large spatial, temporal, and diel scales. Our proposed work combines comprehensive, and standardized sampling, field campaigns with mesocosm experiments to better understand within-and across-lake relations between larval LAW density, condition, and growth, zooplankton populations, and other environmental variables.

Trout Unlimited will inspire the next generation of Great Lakes stewards by engaging Kentwood and Grandville Public School students through watershed education, fly fishing, and stewardship. Students will explore their local trout stream, learn to cast a fly rod and tie flies, and plan and implement stewardship projects, thus granting students the knowledge, tools, and community to become thoughtful recreators and impactful stewards of the Great Lakes.

Nurturing Stewardship through Peer Mentoring will partner Hope College students with local K-12 students to engage in hands-on stewardship projects. College students will expand their leadership skills and commitment to stewardship while mentoring younger students in place-based education projects and cultivating the youth’s lifelong passions for the environment. The mutual support of these students by ExploreHope Academic Outreach and the Office of Sustainability creates a powerfully effective means to engage students throughout their learning.

The Grand Rapids Public Museum will build on its successful school-based watershed programming to develop public programs that engage the community and promote stewardship. The Museum’s Camp Curious and public programs will be expanded to include additional sessions and the Sturgeon Excursion, a Museum game/learning platform, which will be adapted and offered to general Museum visitors and has the potential to reach over 250,000 people annually.

The Detroit Leadership and Environmental Education Program builds the next generation of Great Lakes environmental and conservation leaders and stewards from frontline communities most impacted by environmental racism. Through a combination of watershed citizen science, an ecological educational curriculum, career mentorship, and outdoor experiences like fishing, camping, hiking and foraging we work with Detroit high school students to foster the deep, passionate relationships with the Great Lakes that fuel a lifetime of leadership.

The timeline for the Brandon Road project has been pushed back by the pandemic. Therefore, National Wildlife Federation and our partners seek a one-year renewal at a lower level to finish the job. Specifically, we will enhance our successful Asian carp communications campaign to finalize the implementation of the Brandon Road project (Project). To do so, we will: 1) Launch new and inspiring communications that bolster momentum; 2) Deploy strategic communications that ‘nationalize’ our efforts to stop the further spread of Asian carp; and 3) Leverage and expand our partnerships with stakeholders in the Ohio and Mississippi River Basins by supporting control and eradication strategies. Keeping Asian carp out of the Great Lakes remains our number one priority. In order to protect the Great Lakes from Asian carp, our nationalization strategy will continue to expand our work into non-Great Lakes regions to build the necessary support that ultimately will lead to implementing the Brandon Road project.

The Flint River Watershed Coalition, along with the Uptown Reinvestment Corporation, will build access on the Flint River in downtown Flint. This stretch of river is valued for its walleye, bass, pike and pan fish fisheries, all of which are underutilized due to limited safe access. The site also will provide invaluable connections to the existing accessible river access site 2.2 miles downstream as well as access and river improvements underway upstream through downtown Flint.

The Grand Rapids Public Museum is re-imagining the role of a public museum. Located on the banks of the Grand River, the Museum will design a welcoming and universally accessible outdoor space that provides educational and recreational opportunities for interaction with the river. Anglers will have safe and well marked access to the fishery from created terraces and pathways. This phase of the project, and focus of proposal, will include finalizing schematic and engineering drawings.

Discovery Center Great Lakes is in the midst of a multi-phase project to transform an old city-owned coal dock into a recreational amenity. This project greatly enhances public fishing access by creating universally accessible parking and pedestrian access to the east wall of the pier where sheeting piling has been modified to withstand higher water levels and railing with rod holders were installed. All features were designed and constructed using universal access principles.

 

Development of two universally accessible fishing platforms and amenities at Homestead Township’s new 52-acre Platte River Park with over 1,550 feet of river access. These platforms will provide outstanding access for people of all ages, needs and abilities to fish for migratory Great Lakes species, including coho salmon and steelhead trout and learn about the fish, flora and fauna in and along the river and Great Lakes as well as the importance of environmental stewardship.

We propose to construct, install, and commission a programmable, full width, 3-axis data carriage at the FishPass Project located on the Boardman River, Traverse City, MI (http://www.glfc.org/fishpass.php).  The carriage will facilitate rapid and consistent collection of environmental data in support of selective fish passage research coordinated by the FishPass Advisory Board.  The carriage will be custom fabricated and outfitted with numerous environmental (e.g., velocity, temperature, dissolved oxygen, pH) and fish movement (e.g., sonar, telemetry) sensors.

The Pere Marquette is a Blue Ribbon Trout Stream and a popular fishery for steelhead, salmon, brook and brown trout. The mainstem has a severely eroding streambank 350' long partially within a railroad right-of-way that has been continuously slumping the last 10 years. Conservation Resource Alliance, PM Watershed Council, PM Trout Unlimited and AECOM are in the final design phase working towards stabilizing this site with fieldstone, plantings, large wood habitat, and floodplain bench restoration.

The proposed project is intended to restore habitat for aquatic biota, especially salmonid, in a reach of the Little Manistee River to a more natural, historic condition utilizing large wood and other natural materials. The proposed work is consistent with the work the Conservation Resource Alliance (CRA) has accomplished in its 50 year history in rivers of northwest Lower Michigan.

CRA and partners, using tried and true decision policy tools, will design and permit the last two improperly sized and deteriorating road stream crossings on the mainstem of the Jordan River at Jordan River Road, sites #WA-3 and #WA-5, to build on past restoration successes and optimize habitat for a diverse community of aquatic life including naturally reproducing Great Lakes salmonids and non-salmonid predator game species.

Huron Pines will conduct a comprehensive inventory of road/stream crossings in the Eastern Upper Peninsula of Michigan within the Lake Huron Basin. The project includes compiling past inventory data and conducting inventories at locations that have not previously been surveyed. Inventories will be prioritized by natural resource partners to identify future restoration projects that provide long-term habitat connectivity throughout these watersheds.

The purpose of this project is the replacement of the existing 24" diameter culverts with 87" X 63" Aluminized Steel Pipe Arch Culverts at 2 locations on Days River Road. The proposed structures will provide natural stream beds, reduce velocities and result in improved passage for aquatic organisms and a reduction in sediment. An additional culvert under an abandoned trail will be removed contingent upon permission by the Property Owner (State of Michigan).

Perfluoralkyl substances (PFAS) are impacting fish and wildlife species across the world. Great Lakes fish are contaminated with these substances but it is unclearhow these compounds affect the health of individual fish and populations. There are too many PFAS to test appropriately, so we propose to validate a predictive framework that models the binding of various PFAS on Great Lakes fish immune proteins and then tests the impact on fish health in disease challenge

Management of Lake Whitefish harvest in Lake Michigan assumes that different stocks do not mix during the fishing season, but validation of this assumption has been difficult using conventional mark-recapture studies. Therefore, in this study, year-round acoustic tracking of 200 individual Lake Whitefish was used to describe stock-specific movement patterns, which will help fishery managers improve estimates of stock abundance that are used to recommend harvest levels.

The Michigan Department of Natural Resources will construct an accessible fishing pier at Sterling State Park for the purposes of provide a safe and accessible public fishing location. A former fishing pier was removed in 2015 due to ice damage. Installation of a new pier will provide improved capacity for fishing programming at this popular fishery.

In the heart of the city of Cheboygan, the Cheboygan River runs with steelhead salmon, rainbow trout, walleye, bass, and sunfish before entering Lake Huron. Its desirable fishing lacks safe access. From designs created with public input, project proposes to construct two of seven planned fishing piers, adjacent lighting, and connecting paths. The piers will provide a destination for shore-based fishing using universal access and reduce erosion from foot traffic.

Following the largest dam removal project in Michigan’s history, which concluded in 2019 on the Boardman River, Conservation Resource Alliance (CRA) initiated road-stream crossing work in the headwaters of the North Branch Boardman River. CRA worked with partners to complete a design for a new bridge crossing and inventory of all crossings in the Boardman watershed and neighboring Grand Traverse Bay feeder streams of Mitchell, Acme, Yuba, and Tobeco Creeks.

Sand Creek is a coldwater stream located in Michigan’s Ottawa and Kent Counties. It is designated as a trout stream by the Michigan Department of Environment, Great Lakes, and Energy (EGLE) but has a history of impairments due to flow regime alterations and sedimentation. The Ottawa Conservation District conducted an inventory of all road-stream crossings in the Sand Creek watershed and a habitat assessment at key locations and identified areas of concern where future restoration efforts may be beneficial.

The Tip of the Mitt Watershed Council completed an engineering alternatives study for the lowermost barrier on the Bear River, the largest tributary to Little Traverse Bay. Potential alternatives for the Lake Street Dam were assessed and included complete or partial removal, modification, or no change. Project partners conducted community engagement efforts to solicit support, receive feedback on potential design alternatives, and highlight the connection between the Great Lakes fishery and coastal tributaries. The study will serve as the basis for prioritizing future management of the dam.

This project has benefited brook trout and other aquatic species by reconnecting 89.6 upstream miles of critical coldwater habitat in the upper Thunder Bay River Watershed by replacing five undersized road/stream crossing structures with timber bridges. These project locations were identified as top priorities based on the comprehensive inventory of road/stream crossings completed in 2018 with Great Lakes Fishery Trust support. This work restored a suite of natural river processes while improving local road infrastructure.

Since the early 2000s, Lake Whitefish (LWF) populations in Lake Michigan have declined whereas Cisco populations have increased. Changes in food resources coupled with differential vulnerability to predators may have negatively affected LWF recruitment and positively influenced Cisco. We will examine the spatio-temporal variability in nearshore zooplankton resources and the dietary preferences and growth of larval fish in situ. Laboratory experiments will highlight reactions of each species to food availability and vulnerability to nearshore predators.

Northview Public School District designed a new teaching curriculum for grades 4–6 that provides an integrated, multidisciplinary learning experience that places Great Lakes stewardship and outdoor learning at the center of the student’s experience. Every student who progresses through Northview Public Schools will have outdoor learning and environmental education experiences as part of their developmental pathway into being active and informed citizens.

Audubon Great Lakes’ Wild Indigo Nature Explorations program fostered community appreciation of wetland ecology and restoration along the Detroit River. This project conducted a series of events that, via community science, recreation, and stewardship, developed a deeper connection to wildlife along the upper Detroit River. With the help of community partners, a local Detroit Wild Indigo coordinator led a cohort of ten teen interns and two young-adult fellows to advocate for healthy watersheds in the region through community stewardship.

The Michigan Department of Natural Resources (DNR), in partnership with the Southeast Michigan Stewardship Coalition (SEMIS Coalition), implemented an integrated education program in Detroit serving middle and high-school students, focusing on fish and fisheries management in the Detroit River and Great Lakes region. The program consisted of the SEMIS Coalition Summer Institute, an outreach visit to schools by DNR staff, a field trip to the DNR Outdoor Adventure Center, and an outdoor-experience field trip. More information can be found at: https://www.michigan.gov/oac/0,5736,7-329-68732_95081---,00.html

Huron Pines provided programming for people of all ages to get them outside and experiencing nature, engaging in habitat management, and contributing to data collection. Huron Pines conducted two program areas for this effort, Experiencing Nature and Habitat Monitoring.

Experiencing Nature consisted of connecting people to nature through events such as snowshoeing, cross-country skiing, nature observation, and water quality sampling.

Habitat Monitoring included trainings about invasive-species removal and monitoring, data-collection protocols, forest habitat monitoring, and rare native plant protection.

• Experiencing Nature events
  
  
  
  • Eighteen events were held (nine in person and nine virtual) that reached 359 people.
  
  
  
  


• Habitat Monitoring events
  
  
  
  • Seven habitat monitoring events were held (three in person, three virtual, one hybrid) that reached 92 people.
  
  
  
  

Tip of the Mitt Watershed Council continued to foster millennial stewards in Northern Michigan using the successes of the middle school Water Resources Education Program to provide local students with comprehensive water resources education and experiences. The program increased student knowledge and provided them with opportunities to improve local water resources through place-based projects and monitoring.

The National Wildlife Federation and our partners will expand our successful Asian carp communications campaign to broaden our base of support and convert this into implementation of the Brandon Road plan (Plan). To do so, we will: 1) Ramp up communications as critical deadlines approach; 2) Develop and deploy solution-oriented messaging in addition to building awareness; and 3) Expand our geographic focus to constituencies in the Ohio and Mississippi River Basins that are currently impacted by Asian carp by supporting control and eradication strategies. We are seeking a major increased investment from the GLFT to double down our efforts to ensure that the Brandon Road plan is finalized.

The GLFT supported the Superior Watershed Partnership as one of the nine Great Lakes Stewardship Initiative (GLSI) hubs throughout the state. In partnership with the Seaborg Center at Northern Michigan University, the Superior Watershed Partnership and the Upper GLSI offered professional development for educators and supported place-based stewardship projects for K-12 students in Alger, Delta, Marquette, and Schoolcraft Counties. The Upper GLSI worked to promote school-community partnerships that engaged communities in project efforts and strengthened stewardship impacts among students. GLFT funding during the project period directly supported 53 total hours of professional development for 28 educators and provided project support for 550 students.

The Manistee River, below Tippy Dam (Wellston, MI), is a federally designated Wild And Scenic River and supports robust fish populations and critical habitat for wild and native species such as Lake Sturgeon. Due to the abundant angler opportunities the site provides, excessive bank erosion has occurred, leading to bank instability, sedimentation and hazardous access. The project team seeks to restore the stream bank and improve angler access at the south bank of the river.

To facilitate the design and engineering of seven accessible fishing piers along the Cheboygan River in downtown Cheboygan, Michigan, the Tip of the Mitt Watershed Council formed a workgroup and engaged the public. The piers will provide accessible, safe access along an area that is hazardous to get to, difficult to fish, and eroding from foot traffic.

The City of South Haven constructed a no-fee, modern, ADA-compliant fish cleaning station in Black River Park to support shore-based angling along the Black River and Lake Michigan. The facility contains a washing station, commercial sprayers, draining racks, and cutting boards for anglers. The station is supported by other amenities at the park, including a restroom, boat launch, and fishing platform, making the station a convenient, high-utility feature.

Elmwood Charter Township has completed the first phase of its land-based redevelopment of the Elmwood Township Marina on West Grand Traverse Bay. The project, phase one of the redevelopment project, included the construction of a fish cleaning station featuring four cleaning tables and a restroom underneath a pavilion near the marina’s boat launch. The station is open to the public at no cost with nearby parking available.

Lake whitefish declines in the four lower Great Lakes (GL) have alarmed GL fishery managers, commercial/tribal fisherman, and the public alike. This research seeks to clarify the role that infectious fish diseases play in decreasing the survival of young lake whitefish and determine routes by which such infections spread from parents to offspring. If funded, study results will help identify viable management solutions and guide future research to improve the health of GL lake whitefish.

The Pigeon River is a coldwater stream located in Ottawa County, Michigan. This river has a history of fluctuating water quality due to sedimentation, nutrient loading, and hydrologic instability from drainage conditions. The Ottawa Conservation District inventoried 93 road-stream crossings and conducted stream habitat assessments and macroinvertebrate sampling on ten locations throughout the Pigeon River.