USGS Biological Science for Wisconsin, a Great Lakes and Rivers State

From a U.S. Geological Survey fact sheet, March 2018.

Wisconsin's economy runs on its natural resources.

• Tourism brings in $19 billion a year and supports about 200,000 jobs. It depends on plentiful lakes, rivers, shorelines and woods for fishing, hunting, boating and other outdoor recreation.
• The Upper Mississippi Basin: its rivers and floodplains, the Mississippi itself among them, are part of a five-State corridor that generates more than $300 billion a year and supports millions of jobs in manufacturing, tourism, transportation and farming.
• The Great Lakes: Wisconsin has more than 800 miles of Great Lakes shoreline, and the fisheries of Lakes Superior and Michigan bring in $185 million a year and thousands of jobs.

The USGS Ecosystems Mission Area — the Department of the Interior's biological research arm — provides science to help Wisconsin manage and conserve its living resources and the ecosystems they depend on.

Fish

Why are walleye declining?

Walleye, Wisconsin's most popular sport fish, have become less abundant in some of the state's lakes. USGS and Wisconsin scientists developed ways to monitor young walleye and found that the problem is survival early in life, well before the fish reach the end of their first summer. They are now studying what limits that survival, including whether predatory fish play a role.

The Great Lakes fishery

Commercial and sport fishing on Lakes Superior and Michigan drive the economy and way of life of Wisconsin's coastal communities and cities. For decades, the USGS has surveyed deep-water prey fish on both lakes from ocean-sized research vessels, one of them based in Ashland, Wisconsin. The results inform decisions shared among States, Tribes and Canadian provinces on keeping the fisheries sustainable.

Research from the 107-foot USGS vessel stationed in Ashland gives yearly estimates of prey fish populations for fisheries management. USGS.

Sea lamprey and other invasive fish

For decades the USGS has worked with the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service and Canada to hold down the damaging economic and ecological effects of invasive sea lamprey in the Great Lakes. The USGS maintains the United States and Canadian registrations of two pesticides used to control sea lamprey. Its research also helps detect other invasive fish, such as Asian carp and round goby, early in Wisconsin waters.

Wildlife and disease

Tracking wildlife diseases

The USGS runs WHISPers, an online tool and one of the largest wildlife disease databases in the United States. It gives managers current information on diseases such as white-nose syndrome — which has devastated populations of insect-eating bats — and chronic wasting disease. Wisconsin's wildlife managers use it to monitor wildlife health and plan their response to disease outbreaks.

Chronic wasting disease in deer

Almost 700,000 hunters enjoy deer hunting in Wisconsin, which brings the State more than $1 billion a year. Chronic wasting disease (CWD), a disease of the nervous system in deer, is becoming more common; left unchecked, it could sharply cut deer hunting and the money it brings local communities. USGS science supports the State's efforts by describing the disease's effects, working out how it spreads and projecting where it will go next, and the USGS is helping Wisconsin develop tools for early detection, diagnosis, surveillance and control.

Loons

The common loon is an icon of Wisconsin's Northwoods. The USGS works with Wisconsin biologists on loon health and chronic mercury exposure, on how loons move, and on the risk they face from avian botulism in the Great Lakes.

Rivers and invaders

The Upper Mississippi

In 1986 Congress recognised the 250 miles of the Mississippi River along Wisconsin's border as a nationally significant ecosystem and commercial navigation system. The USGS is the science lead for long-term resource monitoring in the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers' Upper Mississippi River Restoration Program, carried out with five states, Wisconsin among them. Datasets and tools built over 30 years have helped managers improve fish and wildlife habitat on more than 30,000 acres in Wisconsin.

Unwelcome mussels and snails

Quagga mussels, zebra mussels and the New Zealand mud snail have invaded some Wisconsin lakes and rivers, bringing major costs for surveillance, education, prevention and management. They can harm farming, drinking-water supplies, recreation, and native species and their habitats. The USGS helps State managers stop their spread with tools to detect and monitor them and by developing ways to control them.

Sources

• U.S. Geological Survey, Biological and Ecological Science for Wisconsin — "A Great Lakes & Rivers State", Fact Sheet 2018–3004, March 2018. https://doi.org/10.3133/fs20183004 — the introduction to the Ecosystems Mission Area, the photo captions and the two USGS photographs recovered from the PDF.
• The fact sheet's other photographs — bats, a fish, a sea lamprey and stock images — are credited to the New York Department of Environmental Conservation, a private photographer, the Great Lakes Fishery Commission and iStock, and are not reproduced.
• Rewritten in hubnx's own words.