Members from the Fisheries and Oceans Canada, Lower Trophic Food Webs lab recently returned from a five-day voyage aboard the CCGS Samuel Risley—one of the impressive Canadian Coast Guard icebreakers servicing the Great Lakes. This mission was an opportunistic sampling effort, aimed at collecting water samples for the binational collaborative winter limnology research ‘WinterGrab’ 2025 […]
Breaking the Ice for the WinterGrab Read More »
From spring to fall, field work amounts to a sizeable proportion of what we do in the Great Lakes Food Webs laboratory at Fisheries and Oceans Canada (DFO). On-going research and monitoring programs, like the binational Cooperative Science and Monitoring Initiative (CSMI) and Hamilton Harbour Area of Concern (AOC) lower trophic assessment project, require fieldwork
Steps & Stages of Field Sampling in the FER Lab Read More »
In the last blog post, we explored the Cooperative Science and Monitoring Initiative (CSMI) and some of the treaty details (Annexes) in the Great Lakes Water Quality Agreement (GLWQA) that make it a vital component of continued binational scientific efforts in the Great Lakes basin. The CSMI certainly plays a vital role in monitoring and
Lake Erie CSMI 2024 : Part II Nine Memorable Experiences Read More »
Last week, members of our team in the DFO Great Lakes Food Webs lab returned from a week-long voyage aboard the Canadian Coast Guard Ship (CCGS) Limnos for the first cruise of the Lake Erie CSMI field-year. We were joined by other interdisciplinary scientists and technicians from our federal research partners at Environment and Climate
Zig-Zagging Through Lake Erie: A CSMI Expedition on the Limnos Read More »
“Time is but the stream I go a-fishing in.” – Henry David Thoreau
At the end of every March, the binational Great Lakes Fisheries Commission (GLFC) holds their public Lake Committee meetings for agencies to report out on the status of each lake. The GLFC was formed by a treaty signed in 1954 to regulate fishing and to fight the binational problem of Sea Lamprey. The location of the meetings move around between the US and Canada, and this past week, the meetings were held in Bay City, Michigan.
Great Lakes Food Webs Science: GLFC Lake Committees Read More »
Great Lakes Food Webs Science: WinterGrab II 2024
“What good is the warmth of summer, without the cold of winter to give it sweetness.” – John Steinbeck
This past week our lab once again sampled sites around Burlington Ontario in February for the WinterGrab II. In the Fall of 2021, a grass-roots group of US and Canadian Great Lakes scientists met to plan a set of standardized sampling for mid-winter across all of the Great Lakes.
Great Lakes Food Webs Science: WinterGrab II 2024 Read More »
“If you don’t know where you are going, any road will get you there” Lewis Carroll
The next science advice client that our lab at Fisheries and Oceans Canada (DFO) provides science advice to is related to our mandate under the International Joint Commission. While Environment and Climate Change Canada (ECCC) has many regulatory and conservation responsibilities, they are both our regular science collaborator in the Great Lakes, and also the Canadian agency lead under the Great Lakes Water Quality Agreement, so they are ultimately responsible for reporting out and moving forward restoration activities.
Great Lakes Food Webs Science Advice Clients : #2 ECCC Read More »
“I always pass on good advice. It is the only thing to do with it. It is never of any use to oneself” Oscar Wilde
I thought I would start a series to discuss some of the clients that our lab at Fisheries and Oceans Canada provides science advice to. I thought I would start with the International Joint Commission (IJC) because it incredibly important to the Great Lakes, but many people don’t really know much, if anything, about it. The International Joint Commission was created between Canada and the United States because of the recognition that the lakes and rivers that cross the borders affect both countries and that they would have to work together to manage them. The US and Canada cooperate to manage these waters “to protect them for the benefit of today’s citizens and future generations”.
Great Lakes Food Webs Science Advice Clients : #1 The IJC Read More »
It is a truth universally acknowledged, that a scientist in possession of good data, must be in want of a paper (with respects to Jane Austin)
Though it is often hoped by students in aquatic sciences that a scientist’s duties involve mostly sampling in the field, the sad fact is that the vast majority of a scientist’s time is spent working on things which aren’t even data and writing, much less working on a boat.
So, What do Aquatic Scientists Work On in the Dark of Winter? Read More »
Lake Huron CSMI 2022: Lake Huron Georgian Bay Cruise May 31- Jun 8 2022. The 2022 field year in the Great Lakes was focused on Lake Huron for Binational Cooperative Science and Monitoring Initiative (CSMI). After several years of disruption from Covid-19 restrictions, we were back onboard with a much closer to normal shipboard experience.
Beauty and Banality on board the Limnos Read More »