1995 September
1. Ruffe Moves Beyond Lake Superior, Into Huron
3. Carpenter Named 1995 Pew Scholar
5. Zebra Mussel Conference Proceedings
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Ruffe Moves Beyond Lake Superior, Into Huron
The Eurasian ruffe has spread to another Great Lake.
In mid-August, a U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service crew found three ruffe in the harbor at Alpena, Mich. The news was a blow to biologists and fisheries managers who had hoped to contain the fish in western Lake Superior.
The ruffe was first discovered in Duluth/Superior Harbor in 1986. The species is believed to have been transported there in the ballast water of ships from Europe.
Since 1993, Great Lakes ships have voluntarily exchanged ballast water in the middle of Lake Superior, where cold and deep waters offered unsuitable habitat for ruffe.
"It's very possible those fish were in Lake Huron before the ballast exchange program even began," said U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service biologist Tom Busiahn. One of the three fish found in Alpena was less than a year old, Busiahn said. "That fish was 56 millimeters long, which is large for a young of the year," he explained. "Because of its size, I'd guess that it likely grew up in Lake Huron."
Young ruffe in Duluth/Superior Harbor are typically small due to the high numbers of the species and correspondingly stiff competition for resources. Biologists estimate that ruffe now comprise nearly 75 percent of all fish in the Duluth/Superior Harbor.
Busiahn heads the federally appointed Ruffe Control Committee, which has developed a six-point plan for ruffe control. However, much of the plan was contingent on containing the fish in western Lake Superior. Now that ruffe have been found outside that area, Busiahn said the committee will likely meet this fall to refocus its efforts.
There are similarities between the ruffe invasion and the spread of the round goby, another exotic fish species, Busiahn said. The goby has established populations in Lakes Michigan, Huron and Erie, and earlier this summer, a goby was found in Lake Superior.
"I'm interested in combining efforts to study both these species," Busiahn said. "They share similarities in habits, and I think they pose similar threats."
"We're at the point now where just about everybody agrees there's no hope of controlling the spread of either of these species in the Great Lakes," Busiahn said. "The focus now has to shift to keeping these fish out of inland waters and waterways."
- Laurence Wiland
As part of the Sea Grant-sponsored Operation Pathfinder, 14 elementary and middle-school teachers gathered in Milwaukee for two weeks this past summer to study oceanography, limnology and coastal processes. The program was specifically targeted at teachers who are members of a minority or who teach in schools with minority student populations.
In addition to attending lectures, teachers did fieldwork and labwork focused on southern Lake Michigan. For the major course project, each participant developed a twelve-day, six-topic oceanography and coastal processes unit to be used in their own classrooms back home. The participants are expected to turn their experiences into a journal article, paper or activity at a state, regional or national education conference.
Carpenter Named 1995 Pew Scholar
UW Sea Grant-funded researcher Stephen Carpenter, a professor at UW-MadisonŐs Center for Limnology, has received a research/action grant from the Pew Scholars Program in Conservation and the Environment. Carpenter is one of 11 1995 Pew Scholars who will receive $150,000 each over the next three years to advance projects aimed at conserving biological diversity around the globe.
Carpenter's recent work focuses on the economic and ecological interaction between humans and the world's watersheds. Discovering that current lake district management policies incorporate little economic information regarding the environmental consequences of human actions, Carpenter will use his Pew award to develop an economic information base to aid the decision-making public in non-technical, comprehensible ways.
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