(intro music) - On this edition of Great Lakes Now.

A tiny Great Lakes fish that's both rare, and venomous.

- Anybody who studies fish, wants to know more about them.

And so when you can actually go underwater with them and spend time with them, it really opens your eyes to what's really going on.

- Great Lakes get the Planet Earth Treatment.

- There's more diversity of large mammals, in the Great Lakes watershed, than there are anywhere in Eastern North America.

- And news from around the Great Lakes.

(theme music) - This program is brought to you by the Fred A. and Barbara M. Erb Family Foundation, The Charles Stewart Mott Foundation.

- The Consumer's Energy Foundation is committed to serving Michigan.

From preserving our state's natural resources and sustaining our future, to continuing business growth, academic achievement, and community involvement.

Learn more at Consumersenergy.com/foundation.

- The Richard C. Devereaux Foundation for Energy and Environmental Programs at DPTV, The Polk Family Fund, and viewers like you.

Thank you.

- Hi, I'm Ward Detwiler.

Welcome to Great Lakes Now.

According to the Great Lakes Fishery Commission, the lakes are home to 177 species of fish.

And more than a third of those species are considered threatened or endangered.

But strides are being made in the study of at least one such fish.

Great Lakes Now website contributor and producer, Kathy Johnson, and her husband, diver and videographer, Greg Lashbrook, bring us the story from the St. Clair River, which flows from Lake Huron to Lake St. Clair, between Michigan and Ontario.

(upbeat music) - [Narrator] Brad Utrup and Jan-Michaell Hessenauer are researchers with the Michigan Department of National Resources, Fisheries Division, and they're studying a very special fish.

- Northern madtoms are a small catfish that, most people and anglers will go their whole lives and never even know that they're out there.

They're incredibly rare, across Michigan, in the Great Lakes region.

- [Narrator] Adult madtoms are small, only reaching four to five inches in length, but they are one of the few aquatic species in the Great Lakes that is venomous.

- If you got stuck by one of their spines, you'd get a decent sting.

It'd probably feel like a bee or a wasp had stung you pretty good.

We try to be real careful handling 'em so that that doesn't happen to us.

- [Narrator] The fish aren't common in the Great Lakes, but Brad and Jan ran across them while studying other species.

- We typically don't look specifically for Northern madtoms, so we catch 'em as part of our Lake Sturgeon survey in the North Channel of St. Clair River.

- [Narrator] In their sturgeon research, Jan and Brad were using setlines, long heavy fishing lines with several hooks and they decided to go after madtoms with the same lines.

- And on the end of those setlines, we put one of those minnow traps, little trap about this big, with a funnel on each end.

And that was to catch Northern madtoms, cause we knew they were present in the system.

- And for the longest time we had really poor luck and we assumed that they were really, really rare.

- [Narrator] They were only catching about a dozen madtoms a year, enough to know the fish were there, but too few for a real scientific study.

Then, they switched the bait in the trap from cubed cheese, to night crawlers, and everything changed.

- About five years ago, all of a sudden we started catching a lot of 'em.

So we went from catching just 12 or 15 a year, to hundreds a year.

- [Narrator] Now they had enough madtoms for a real study but Brad and Jan faced a different problem.

- [Brad] But we can catch fish in nets, and we can see that they're in certain places or they're declining or increasing, but we really don't understand what's really happening until we're under there, observing this firsthand.

- [Narrator] Catching the fish could only tell them what they already knew, that the madtoms were in the St. Clair River, but Brad and Jan wanted to know a lot more.

- But we don't know a lot about the habitat that they're using on, on the bottom.

- [Brad] Knew they were out there, knew they were reproducing, but we really didn't know the how, the why, and the when.

So that's why we decided we needed to, to take a little closer look at these reproductive habits.

- [Narrator] To get up close and personal with the madtoms, Brad and Jan would have to go where the fish were.

They needed to learn to dive.

- Scuba diving for me has always been something I've been interested in, and something that just made perfect sense for our station.

We can try to to teeth out some more of those details, of why these things are happening.

Not just reporting that, here's the facts, but actually figuring out, to kind of finishing and telling the story of why it's, why it's happening.

- [Narrator] Brad and Jan had lots of questions.

How deep were the madtoms nesting?

At what time of year, on what type of bottom?

How far apart were the nests, and how many eggs were in each one?

Were they being preyed upon by other species?

And in order to know that the madtoms were reproducing successfully, they wanted to see a male madtom guarding a nest.

- [Jan] The male will stay with his eggs, and protect them from, from predators, and guard them as they develop though their lifecycle.

And that's a really important strategy that a lot of different fish species have had, to increase the survival of their eggs, They that provide that high level parental care, that's really costly to the male.

- [Narrator] But before they could observe the nesting madtoms, the researchers had to find them.

So they turned to the one guy that they knew could help.

- [Brad] Long before my time here, the stations had a relationship with Greg Lashbrook, a local diver in the St. Clair River.

And they did a lot of neat projects then.

And so, as we got into scuba diving, we got got back in contact with Greg.

He was incredibly generous, and volunteered to take us out and show us some of the madtoms and where they hide out.

When you've been out here scouting the site, how many nests have you seen?

Approximately?

- Probably about a dozen.

And I've marked most of the nests that I saw with this spotted tape.

- [Narrator] Greg also knew when and where the madtoms nested.

He began checking the site, and when the first cluster of eggs appeared, he marked the spot and arranged to meet Brad and Jan at the river.

- [Greg] This used to be a lumber yard, so there's a lot of old wood pieces and there is some wreckage, and they really like being under flat boards.

- [Narrator] When Brad and Jan went underwater, they saw mud puppy eggs, a good sign since mud puppies and madtoms use similar nesting habits.

What's good for mud puppies should be pretty good for madtoms too.

And when they got to the sites that Greg had scouted for them, they found what they were looking for.

- Come upon a board underwater, pick up one edge and look under it real carefully.

You'll see the cluster of all little BB type eggs.

There's a good chance it'll start to move with the current.

So you gotta kind of try and protect them and don't let it leave.

- [Brad] I mean, we were, we were blown away.

I mean there were madtoms, it seemed, like all over the place by the time we did a couple dives, we felt way more confident in finding them than we did when we started.

Made an incredibly efficient use of our time, and really sped up our learning curve, with trying to study these madtoms again, in deep, fast flowing water, and hiding, you know, not letting us find them.

- [Narrator] Northern madtom are an endangered species in Michigan and Ontario, so their presence in the St. Clair River is an indication of a healthy system.

- [Jan] So fish can swim, they can choose to live where they want, so their presence in a location means that their habitat needs are being met there.

- [Brad] So it's a great sign that the madtoms are here and that the invertebrates that they're finding to eat are in high numbers as well.

- [Narrator] Scuba diving is changing the researcher's perspective about how fish use the river.

- [Brad] You know, anybody who studies fish, you know, wants to know more about them.

And so when you can actually go underwater with them and spend time with them, it really, really opens your eyes to what's really going on.

- [Jan] It's definitely a new way of seeing the world and seeing, you know, the fish behaving in their normal way.

Definitely gives a different appreciation for how they're utilizing the environment.

To try to observe them directly underwater, get a sense of where they're hanging out, the type of habitat they're working in.

And it does provide a different, you know, type of data collection for us, that I think is really useful.

One of the things that really surprised me about observing them in the daytime, was how like, docile they are.

Like you could, you know, really get close to 'em, and that didn't seem to bother 'em.

It was really amazing.

- [Narrator] Diving is also opening up new areas of study that were previously unattainable.

- [Jan] The St. Clair River is a really tough system to work in.

It's really deep, it's really fast.

And I think it's probably our only practical way of getting a density, and ultimately a population estimate for the population in the St. Clair River.

Before has just been, you know, totally out of reach of, of what we could do.

- [Narrator] What Brad and Jan learn about the madtoms could help guide management and restoration plans by observing the fish up close, they can learn how the madtoms are succeeding, and what is needed for the population to grow.

- [Jan] I think the, the biggest gain so far has been some of the practical experience, of how to like, design a larger study to look for them, how much time to expect, the type of area to cover, and just sort of how to like practically find them, and observe them without upsetting their habitat too much, or disrupting their life when they're, doing their thing down there, and trying to observe them without impacting them.

- The scuba diving will open it wide up, so they can't hide from us if we can actually go down and swim with them.

- To find out more about Great Lakes fish, visit GreatLakesNow.org.

Maybe you've noticed that outside of our region, people don't seem to know much about the Great Lakes.

Apparently, some people even think you can see across Lake Superior.

But that may change now, because a new international documentary series is putting the Great Lakes front and center.

- [Narrator] Carved by the retreat of a 2 million year old glacier, the five Great Lakes formed the largest freshwater ecosystem on earth.

This watershed holds one quarter of the world's surface freshwater, and is teaming with wildlife.

It can feel like the lakes don't get a lot of international attention, at least not compared to the Amazon Rainforest or the Serengeti.

But now a three part documentary series called, Great Lakes Untamed, is telling some amazing stories of the diverse animals and plants, that call this watershed home.

Dr. Ted Oakes, a biologist and natural history filmmaker is the creative force behind the series.

- Great Lakes Untamed is really a planet earth style treatment of the Great Lakes, and it's really the first time it's been done.

I've been, making wildlife shows for the BBC here in the UK for 25 years, and no one had ever really turned that big budget lens at the Great Lakes watershed, and all that natural history of the watershed.

- [Narrator] Ted grew up in Canada, along the Ottawa River, which is part of the Great Lakes watershed.

Like many Canadian students at the time, he was fascinated by a film he saw in school, about a toy canoe's journey through the Great Lakes.

The film was called 'Paddle to the Sea'.

- [Ted] When I saw 'Paddle to the Sea' in school, which most Canadians in my generation were wheeled out to see, I'd only ever seen Lake Ontario.

I'd never seen any of the other Great Lakes.

And it just inspired in me an inspiration to, you know, a passion for wanting to see nature in the Great Lakes.

And it was the film that sort of galvanized the consciousness of Canadians, about the value of the water in the Great Lakes.

- [Narrator] Great Lakes Untamed goes beyond the five Great Lakes themselves, and explores the lakes, ponds, streams, and rivers that feed them, the entire watershed.

- [Ted] So there's one quarter of the surface fresh water on planet earth in this system, and it's 90% of the US's surface fresh water, lies in this system, so it is the largest fresh water ecosystem on earth, and thus, it's the most important fresh water ecosystem on earth.

And in a planet short of fresh water, this is our Amazon.

- [Narrator] There are three episodes in the Great Lakes Untamed series.

- [Ted] The first episode is Source to Sea, that tells the story of the journey of water, from the western part of the watershed, all the way up to the Gulf of St. Lawrence.

The second episode is, called The Big Freeze, and that tells the story of how ice and snow shape the system, and shape life, and the landscape of the Great Lakes.

And the third episode is called, Marvels and Mysteries.

And that episode tells the story of how life in the Great Lakes has just a few weeks to reproduce itself in spring.

- [Narrator] The documentary series took three years to produce and more than 150 people were involved in the production.

Each episode cost more than a million dollars to create, and this series includes incredible images and scenes of the region's wildlife.

Including some that have been the subject of surprising discoveries.

- [Ted] Some good examples of that are, the wolves fishing in Voyageurs National Park in the States.

We know that wolves fish in tidal pools in British Columbia.

Those are the only wolves in the world that anybody's recorded catching fish.

But no one had ever thought that wolves caught fish in land.

But of course, there's so many ponds and lakes and rivers in the Great Lakes system and it would make complete sense.

But we have footage from Voyageurs National Park where wolves are actually fishing for suckers in Minnesota.

And that's really great to see that.

- [Narrator] The series recognizes the challenges facing the Great Lakes, but puts the emphasis on little known wonders of the region.

Like Canada's longest underwater cave system, flying squirrels that glow in the dark, and the unique relationship between beavers and wolves, that regulates the flow of clean water.

- [Ted] All films ever made about the Great Lakes are almost always about the challenges of the Great Lakes, and the environmental harm that we've done to the Great Lakes.

And we felt it was important to remind people how much there is to lose.

You know, how beautiful the lakes are, how incredible they are, how incredible the wildlife is.

There's more diversity of large mammals in the Great Lakes watershed, than there are any anywhere in eastern North America because it is a meeting point northern and southern fauna.

So, it is just an incredible, inspiring place that we've kind of forgotten about.

That we've never even realized was sitting at our feet.

- [Narrator] Ted and his broadcast partners plan to launch a comprehensive education and community outreach project as well.

Merit Jensen-Carr is one of the executive producers of Great Lakes Untamed.

- We've been funded by the Royal Bank of Canada and they've given us two and a half million dollars, for an ambitious education program that includes, a touring floor map, of the Great Lakes, with augmented reality and a very large website, with all kinds of educational materials and curriculum materials that will be touring all over North America.

- [Narrator] Fall of 2022, marked the 50th anniversary of the US-Canada Great Lakes Water Quality Agreement.

Ted and his partners believe it's the perfect time to encourage conservation efforts for the next 50 years and beyond.

- I really feel like natural history is a perfect way of inspiring people to really fully understand what's there to protect, and then, you know, and then the call to action comes, you know, but first we have to understand, be inspired by the beauty, and really, you know understand the animals that live in that, in that location, and the behaviors, and how wonderful they are.

- [Narrator] Ted is hoping that Great Lakes Untamed will inspire a new generation, in the same way the film "Paddle to the Sea" inspired him so many years ago.

- Wouldn't it be amazing if we were able to get this TV series out to every school in the States, and every school in Canada, and inspire people for another 50 years so that when people come back, and we're watching something like this in 50 years, that they tell us what inspired them to leave a legacy of inspiration around the most important watershed of the planet, our Amazon is, is what we we should try and do.

- How can you watch Great Lakes Untamed?

It depends on where you live.

We have all the information for you at GreatLakesNow.org.

And now is time for The Catch, which takes you around the Great Lakes to hear from reporters about the issues they're covering.

- [Narrator] Enbridge Energy is facing government action, and even criminal charges, stemming from the construction of the company's Line 3 pipeline in Northern Minnesota.

Minnesota Public Radio's, Kirsti Marohn has the story.

- Several state agencies, and one Native American tribe, the Fond du Lac Band of Lake Superior Chippewa, announced this enforcement action against Enbridge, the company that built the pipeline.

- [Narrator] Enforcement action is one of the tools that the Minnesota Pollution Control Agency, and the State's Department of Natural Resources use to hold companies like Enbridge accountable.

The pipeline was completed in October of 2021.

And breaches that occurred during the construction process have been public knowledge for some time.

Kirsti says the penalties for those breaches are just coming out now, because it can take agencies a long time to investigate violations, and create an agreement to address them.

- This pipeline actually crosses more than 200 water bodies, and including some major rivers, like the Mississippi.

So there were also some independent environmental monitors that were watching the construction process and were supposed to report if they saw any problems.

But you know, one of the concerns is that the regulations, you know, they're not really designed for such a massive project like this.

- [Narrator] Kirsti says a project of this scale requires a lot of money, which is part of the reason Minnesota's Department of Natural Resources has asked the state legislature to increase penalties for using state water without a permit.

- Right now, the maximum penalty is $20,000, and Enbridge is a multi-billion dollar energy company.

So you know, it's not really a deterrent for such a big company.

- [Narrator] The bill proposes doubling the maximum penalty for water appropriation violations to $40,000.

However, due to Minnesota's divided legislature, and concerns expressed by farmers and cities, the bill is stuck in a legislative limbo for now.

In addition to the state agencies, Minnesota Attorney General Keith Ellison's office has filed one misdemeanor count against Enbridge in Clearwater County District Court, for using state waters without a permit.

- Enbridge has said that they followed strict environmental regulations while they were building the pipeline.

They say that they disagree with the Attorney General, that any criminal laws were broken, but that they agreed to this charge and this enforcement action as a way to sort of move forward.

- [Narrator] Following the charge, Enbridge officials issued a statement, in which they said "Enbridge fundamentally disagrees with the Minnesota Attorney General, that it committed any criminal act.

However, in the interest of moving forward, Enbridge reached agreement with the Attorney General, as set forth in the agreement, we fully expect the criminal charges will be dismissed."

Combined with previous actions from the state DNR, and Fond du Lac Band of Lake Superior Chippewa, Kirsti says the investigations have resulted in more than 11 million in payments, environmental projects, and financial assurances from Enbridge.

- So the state officials say that this wraps up their investigations of these current violations, but there is the possibility that there could be more enforcement action in the future.

They are continuing to monitor these sites and others along the route.

There's also a bound to be discussion about how future projects should be handled, and there already has been some discussion about whether there needs to be changes to the approval process for a big project like this, that crosses multiple jurisdictions, and there's multiple agencies involved.

- [Narrator] In the near future, visitors along Lake Erie's shoreline, could see some high tech helpers cleaning up trash.

Ideastream Public Media reporter and producer, Zaria Johnson has the details.

- Robots are being tested currently, on Lake Erie, during the fall, but they'll be implemented in the spring, to begin the collection and research process.

And they'll be deployed all throughout the spring and summer, and then they'll be stored again during the winter.

- [Narrator] Yep, you heard that right, robots.

They'll collect plastic pollution from both the shoreline, and the water, as part of a larger binational effort, called the Great Lakes Plastic Cleanup Initiative.

- So the Great Lakes Plastic Cleanup Initiative is a partnership between two organizations that are based in Canada, and that's the Council of the Great Lakes Region and Pollution Probe.

And so they're working together.

They started in Canada, to address the shorelines in Canada.

But thanks to grant funding, and a partnership with a few different metro parks here in Ohio, they were able to expand to Northeast Ohio, and to elsewhere in the United States.

- [Narrator] Zaria says a $1 million donation from retailer Meijer, funded the remote controlled robots that will be picking up litter around Lake Erie, beginning in the spring of 2023.

- [Zaria] One of the robots, the Bebot, which is the one that combs the beach, that was developed by the Niteko Robotics, and the PixieDrone, which is the one that floats on the surface of the water, was designed by Ranmarine.

- [Narrator] The Bebot rakes the shoreline gathering debris into a collection bin on the robot, and can carry up to 88 pounds of material.

Meanwhile, the PixieDrone pulls floating material from the water and collects it in the back of the machine.

It has a camera to help avoid obstacles, and a basket capable of holding up to, about 42 gallons of water, and 132 pounds of trash.

- The Rochester Institute found that there are about 22 million pounds of plastic flowing into all of the Great Lakes, every year.

The project is kind of hoping to narrow down what kind of plastic it is, and where it's coming from.

- [Narrator] Aside from having robots collect trash, Zaria says that part of the Great Lakes Plastic Cleanup's goal is to educate the public about the scope of this issue.

- When beach goers are coming and going, and seeing these robots driving down the beach, or floating in the lake and just spark that conversation and inspire people to look at their plastic use, and plastic pollution a little bit differently.

- [Narrator] And once the robots collect the trash researchers will sort and study the plastics to get a sense of where it's coming from, and how to mitigate it.

- So the robots might collect cigarette buds, plastic bottles, but they also might collect wood, plants, things like that.

So the researchers will categorize what kind of plastic or debris it is, and find ways to dispose of it properly.

So if it's a plastic bottle, they might find a way to recycle it, or dispose of it.

But if it's something like a plant or organic material, they're gonna reintroduce that back into the lake, or the beach that it came from.

- [Narrator] Staci Drouillard is a new contributor to GreatLakesNow.org, where she'll be exploring indigenous issues in her column, "Nibi Chronicles".

Nibi is the Ojibwe word for water.

- I thought it was a natural title for a column about the Great Lakes and specifically where I live here, on the North Shore of Lake Superior.

- [Narrator] Based in Grand Marais, Minnesota, Staci is a Grand Portage Ojibwe direct descendant and her father is a band member.

Staci says she hopes to infuse Nibi Chronicles with ideas rooted in the interconnections that are a crucial part of how she views the natural world.

- The Ojibwe way, the Anishinaabe way, is a very holistic way of looking at the world.

Everything's connected, and that includes other cultures, other people, and certainly other bodies of water.

And there's a lot to be learned, I think, from Ojibwe history and culture.

And so hopefully people will tune in to that.

- [Narrator] Staci's column will be a monthly feature, consisting of shorter written pieces and photos, like the one she took at this year's Water Is Life Festival, in Duluth, Minnesota.

- I thought it was just a great, beautiful event, and experience to be a part of, and I wanted to share it.

I think what we'll be exploring as we move forward with the column, is things that I find inspiring, and I hope that the topics that I write about and explore are relevant to others.

- Thanks for watching.

For more on these stories, and the Great Lakes in general, visit GreatLakesNow.org.

When you get there, you can follow us on social media, or subscribe to our newsletter to get updates about our work.

See you out on the lakes.

(upbeat music) (upbeat music continues) - This program is brought to you by The Fred A. and Barbara M. Erb Family Foundation, The Charles Stewart Mott Foundation.

- The Consumer's Energy Foundation is committed to serving Michigan.

From preserving our state's natural resources, and sustaining our future, to continuing business growth, academic achievement, and community involvement.

Learn more at consumersenergy.com/foundation.

- The Richard C. Devereaux Foundation for Energy and Environmental Programs at DPTV, The Polk Family Fund, and viewers like you.

Thank you.

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