Lake Erie Mud Puppy Dieoff Causing Concern, Puzzlement - Free Press

[hatrack]

Some people might wonder what's the big deal about a large die-off of mud puppies in the Detroit River and Lake Erie? After all, the lizardlike, foot-long predaceous salamanders are less than adorable.

"Mud puppies are kind of like the canaries in a mine," said Gary Towns, a research biologist in the Livonia office of the Michigan Department of Natural Resources who is trying to figure out why so many of these pre-dinosaur, evolutionary relics have died in the past few weeks. "They seem to be very sensitive to pollutants and water quality. But we really don't know yet what's causing this, or what it might mean long term."

The long-term prospects worry researchers like Eric Obert, associate director of the Pennsylvania Sea Grant program. That state and Ohio experienced massive fish kills along their Lake Erie shorelines this spring, and Obert said he worries that recent changes in the lakes might have set the stage for chronic outbreaks of toxic botulism E, which kills both fish and birds.

Once again, the finger of suspicion points at the zebra and quagga mussels that were brought into the lakes by ocean-going vessels and might have created environments where the botulism E bacteria can thrive. Bea McCain of Redford said she saw "hundreds of dead mud puppies" last week near her family's cottage east of Holiday Beach, Ontario. "Our family has owned that cottage for over 70 years, and even my grandparents don't remember seeing this. They can remember back in the '50s, when the algae would get real bad and fish would die off. They said you'd see some dead carp and garfish, but maybe 20 or 30, not 500 like the mud puppies this year," she said.

EDIT

http://www.freep.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20060723/SPORTS10/607230644/1058

[philb]

1. Great Lakes temperature increase over 7 degrees in last 10 yrs- NOAA buoys

that includes Lake Erie, quite a change to adjust to

www.flcv.com/GLdata.html