Michigan lawmakers may fund last-ditch effort to save whitefish
From: BridgeMI.com
- As invasive mussels kill off whitefish in the lower Great lakes, lawmakers are considering whether to fund a last-ditch fish rescue effort
- The concept is to pull fish from the lakes and breed them in captivity in hopes of keeping bloodlines alive long enough to quell the mussel invasion
- One lawmaker credits Bridge Michigan with raising attention to the issue
As lake whitefish teeter on the brink of collapse in the lower Great Lakes, Michigan lawmakers are considering investing in a last-ditch effort to save the iconic species before it’s too late.
An appropriations bill under consideration in the Democrat-controlled state Senate would allocate money to the Michigan Department of Natural Resources for a rearing and stocking program aimed at “supporting lake whitefish stock recovery.”
The line item includes a $100 allocation, which state Sen. John Cherry, D-Flint, described as a placeholder number pending further deliberations about how much money — if any — to devote to the effort.
“It could potentially be now or never for some of those genetic stocks,” Cherry said, noting that some whitefish bloodlines in lakes Michigan and Huron could vanish within years.