Thousands of Great Lakes residents know their deepwater sculpin from their rock bass. In part, that’s due to the “Fish of the Great Lakes” poster distributed by the Wisconsin Sea Grant program.
The program will reprint the poster in late fall and is asking fish lovers of all kinds what species they think should be added to or subtracted from the existing version.
View the current poster. Suggestions can be emailed to Sea Grant’s Fisheries Specialist Titus Seilheimer at tseilheimer@aqua.wisc.edu. All responses will be included in a drawing for five winners of a free poster, so please include contact information. The deadline for suggestions is Sept. 20, 2013.
“We have distributed nearly 10,500 copies of ‘Fish of the Great Lakes.’ It’s always popular with students, fishermen and management agencies such as departments of natural resources. This poster hangs in classrooms, rec rooms and offices all across the Great Lakes region,” said Linda Campbell who manages the Sea Grant online publication store and oversaw the first printing of the poster in 2000.
Seilheimer said submissions so far have been steady, with Asian carp leading the pack. The charismatic large jumping fish, however, is not under consideration since it is not established in the Great Lakes.
Non-invasive fish in the running are trout-perch and bowfin.
To get a copy of the current poster, soon to be a collector’s item when the new edition is released, visit aqua.wisc.edu/publications. “Fish of the Great Lakes” costs $8.
