Review of the Dynamic Great Lakes
February 2, 2012
The Dynamic Great Lakes
Review of The Dynamic Great Lakes
U.S. Water News – Peter Wild
Are dinosaurs cruising the benthic depths of the Great Lakes even while we go about our daily tasks? Not exactly. Yet sturgeon, fish weighing up to 300 pounds and similarly plated with armor,are nosing around down there. Occasionally you can see the monsters appear, making their spawning runs up rivers and surfacing like submarines in the pools beneath waterfalls.
The five Great Lakes, holding nearly twenty percent of the earth’s fresh water, are quite young. Gouged out by glaciers, they assumed their present shapes a mere 3,000 years ago. For that, they are a dynamic shifting system, still changing and exhibiting surprising differences. Lake Ontario, for example, the easternmost, although smallest of the bodies, holds more water than Lake Erie, its shallower nearby sister. Here’s a handy primer for all such things, from the interaction of phytoplankton and calcium carbonate that gives a white cast to these inland oceans come August and helps clean the water to the charming ice volcanoes spouting chilly “lava” in the winter.
This is intriguing stuff for adults, but the straightforward presentation also lends itself to use in schools, beginning about the sixth grade and up. And yes, we get the latest news on the zebra mussel, the tube nose goby, and other threats to the natural scheme of things. Also good news; how since the banning of DDT in the 1970′s, the bald eagles have come back.
Life Thrives in a Clean Environment
July 27, 2011
Photo by Steve Damstra
If we could experience the Great Lakes as an eagle or a fish we would feel the mighty air streams and currents in their waters. We would know the change of seasons: winter with its icy blasts, spring with the thawing of ice on the lakes, summer with the hatching of new life in nests, and autumn with the running of anadromous fish from lakes to river beds.
Life in and around the Great Lakes thrives when we take good care of the air and water. Our lives will thrive also with clean air and water.
Yesterday people picked up trash on the beach in Grand Haven Michigan coordinated by Alliance for the Great Lakes and a local business. Way to go!
Watercolor of an American Bald Eagle
February 9, 2011
Eagles will begin their courtship this month. The male and female play a daring game in the air. They fly high, grasp talons and plummet to earth unclasping at the last moment before hitting the ground and then they fly up.
Read about the environmental success story in my book, The Dynamic Great Lakes The success was that eagles made a comeback after Rachel Carson’s book, Silent Spring . The book made people realize what they must do to bring about good changes to the environment.
Eagles around the Great Lakes: an Environmental Success Story
February 4, 2011
photo by Steve Damstra
The return of eagles to the shores of the Great Lakes is an environmental success story. Read more about what impact environmentalists had through the democratic process in The Dynamic Great Lakes now available through Barnes & Noble.
American Bald Eagle with Fish
January 27, 2011
photo by Steve Damstra
The American bald eagle with a fish in its talons. Fish are the favorite food for eagles. These birds are protected and there are heavy fines for harming an eagle. They are an environmental indicator. Where you find eagles the environment is in good shape.
Return of the American Bald Eagles
January 25, 2011
photo by Steve Damstra
This is an excerpt from my non fiction book The Dynamic Great Lakes
High above the sand dunes in West Michigan, a pair of American
bald eagles cavort; they dart, dive and swirl through the air at
dizzying heights. Suddenly one of them turns on its back and they
grasp talons spinning into a daring, cart wheeling free fall toward
earth. They unlock talons and flap their powerful wings, flying
upward at the last instant before hitting the ground. This, their
courtship ritual, will bond the two eagles together for life.
Today, bald eagles are seen around the Great Lakes more and
more often, but in 1978, these magnificent birds were threatened.
Threatened with extinction. Their eggs never hatched since
pesticides that lingered in the environment long after they were
sprayed to kill insects magnified in Great Lakes food pyramids. The
eagle is at the peak of the food pyramid and its favorite food is fish.
This makes the eagle an environmental indicator; a measuring stick
of how well the whole ecosystem is faring. Where the ecosystem is
healthy, eagles can live and raise their young
Since DDT was banned in 1972, the nesting eagle population has more than
tripled.
How The Eagles Happened to Return to the Great Lakes
January 21, 2011
A Critically acclaimed book about the Great Lakes and their ecosystems.
I wanted to let people know, you can fight city hall and win. It takes time and patience, but sometimes the results are spectacular. Let me explain.
Years ago we lived across the street from the city park in Grand Haven, Michigan where the elm trees were sprayed with DDT to fight Dutch elm disease. Before the spraying started we were told we could move our car–the sticky spray clung to everything. We had two pre school children at this time and no mention was made of protecting them. When they went out to play, they were exposed to it for a long time after each spraying.
Long after the spraying we would see robins trembling in their death throes. DDT is a long lasting pesticide that magnifies through food chains and the robins fed upon earthworms and died before our eyes. The fish in nearby Lake Michigan were affected even more since food chains in water are long. DDT builds up in plankton, small fish and larger fish. The bald eagle that feeds upon fish is at the end of a long food chain. Subsequent to the spraying eagles began to disappear due to the effects of DDT. Their young did not hatch.
I was reading Rachel Carson’s book Silent Spring at this time and I showed it to my husband. His reaction was visceral. He had to do something about it. He marched down to city hall and asked that the DDT program be stopped in our city park. When it was not stopped, he brought experts to explain. City hall countered by bringing agriculture department experts. This went on for three years before he convinced city hall to stop the DDT program. Then people from a neighboring city came and asked how he had managed to get DDT stopped. Together they formed the Michigan Pesticides Council. We met at M.S.U. with Dr. Ted Black, Dr. George Wallace, Dr. Howard Tanner, Joan Wolfe and others. We marshaled citizen support. Other groups joined in and by 1972, DDT was banned in Michigan.
It took many years for DDT to purge from Lake Michigan, but in recent years we have seen bald eagles along the beaches and the Grand River that flows through Grand Haven, Michigan. Even the peregrine falcons and ospreys that were also once decimated by DDT have returned.
The Return of the Eagle
January 18, 2011
Read about the return of the American Bald Eagle to the shores of the Great Lakes in my book, The Dynamic Great Lakes
Banning DDT was responsible for their return. I often see them near the shores of Lake Michigan. It is illegal to shoot them.
http://www.publishamerica.net/product23502.html Where to order an updated copy of The Dynamic Great Lakes.
The Dynamic Great Lakes non-fiction
January 13, 2010
Everything you wanted to know about the Great Lakes but were afraid to ask. This book is available from Amazon.com, Barnes & Noble and many independent bookstores such as the Bookman in Grand Haven, MI, Schuler’s Books and Music in Grand Rapids and many other places.
http://www.amazon.com/-/e/B002PI5IQQ Here is a link to my books, my biography and a video I made reading from The Wilderness Within.
This is a collection of poems and essays from wild places I have visited from the Galapagos to the Tarahumara indians in Mexico, from France to the Panama Canal and the whales we have seen around the world.
