Joe writes . . . 

We have written about perch fishing and invasive species here on lengthofthegrand, both of which are addressed in an excellent blog post I read recently while following  ThumbWind, which reports on and celebrates life in Michigan’s Upper Thumb region.

ThumbWind’s most recent post – by blog creator Michael Hardy – features an interview with Tom Goniea, a Senior Fish Biologist within the Fisheries division of the Michigan Department of Natural Resources. If you are interested in the health of the Great Lakes, I think you will find the interview with Goniea to be of great interest.

In the ThumbWind interview Goniea is quoted as saying, “Commercial and recreational harvesting is not the cause of the decline in the perch population. First, there is plenty of perch hatched in the (Saginaw) Bay each year. It’s a problem with recruitment. Juvenile perch are not surviving their first winter. The problem is that Zebra and Quaggra mussels are filtering out the zooplankton that the young fish need to survive. Young perch are not getting to the right size and fat content to survive the first winter.”

There is more on the health of yellow perch in the Great Lakes in the interview, and lots of good content to peruse at ThumbWind.com. Enjoy!

Yellow Perch survey on Saginaw Bay. Photo taken from http://www.ThumbWind.com post and courtesy of the Michigan Department of Natural Resources.

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Now more than ever, take the river’s side. Every day the news from Washington and Lansing reminds us that Industry and Big Ag already have plenty of powerful friends.