Conference highlights fish, wildlife issues
The 78th Midwest Fish and Wildlife Conference was held in Milwaukee last Sunday through Wednesday at the Wisconsin Center and Hilton City Center in Milwaukee.
About 1,100 scientists, managers, professors and students attended the event and presented talks and posters on more than 500 topics.
The conference theme was "Strengthening Natural Resources Through Collaboration," a nod to the reality that, in an era of reduced funding for most agencies, it's more important than ever to foster cooperation to achieve success in fish and wildlife conservation.
The event was hosted by the Wisconsin Department of Natural Resources, Wisconsin chapter of the American Fisheries Society and Wisconsin chapter of The Wildlife Society.
Conference co-chairs were DNR employees Stephen Gilbert (fisheries supervisor), Justine Hasz (fisheries director), Scott Hull (director of Office of Applied Science) and Tami Ryan (chief of wildlife health).
For a working journalist covering conservation and natural resources issues, a press pass to the event was like being offered a four-day ticket to an allyou-can-eat buffet.
Unfortunately, there was so much food (research) it was served simultaneously in 10 rooms.
The presentations on Monday, for example, were grouped by: citizen science; cooperative ecosystem study units; chronic wasting disease; birds; inland lakes; Asian carp; carnivores; tools and technology; walleye; salmonids.
While I couldn't attend them all, the presentations and groups allowed a snapshot of the most critical issues facing natural resource managers and researchers in our region.
What follows is a brief summary of key work areas highlighted at the conference.
Chronic wasting disease: CWD is now found in most Midwestern states and has proven to be a terrible strain on wildlife funding, staff time and staff morale.
Wisconsin is an outlier - it is the only state in the region that is not actively trying to manage the disease with special hunts or other methods aimed at reducing the number of CWD-positive deer on the landscape.
John Fischer of the Southeastern Cooperative Wildlife Disease Study gave a presentation titled "Five Decades (or more) of Chronic Wasting Disease: Lessons Learned."
Fischer acknowledged the difficulty in containing the disease.
But he also said this: "We believe there are two important motivations for making progress toward sustainable detection, containment, and control strategies for CWD in the coming decades: Data from several sources suggest heavily-infected wild cervid populations will not thrive in the long-term, and, data on CWD prions and experience with other animal prion diseases suggest minimizing human exposure to these agents is prudent."
Walleye recruitment troubles: Research continues across the Upper Midwest to try to understand the causes of poor walleye recruitment seen in most lakes.
John Kubisiak of the DNR gave a summary of recent data from the Minocqua chain in northern Wisconsin.
Although the 5,800-acre chain historically exhibited excellent size structure and moderate levels of recruitment in its walleye population, natural recruitment declined dramatically after early 2000s. A strong public push to rehabilitate the fishery brought together biologists, tribal interests, anglers, fishing clubs and local businesses.
The public effort resulted in local acceptance of much stricter measures than agency biologists originally proposed, including five years of no tribal walleye harvest coupled with catchand-release angling regulations.
Stocking of extended growth walleye and liberalized bass harvest regulations also were implemented. Initial responses of the fishery to these measures are positive, but significant natural reproduction has not yet returned, Kubisiak said.
Improving the Wisconsin walleye fishery is proving to be a very complex, challenging task.
Musky fishing: Muskellunge, on the other hand, are proving easier to manage.
The reason? Changes in habits among fishermen. As opposed to walleyes, which are kept at high rates by anglers, the vast majority of muskies are released these days.
Six decades of data from Escanaba Lake in Vilas County made this shift in behavior abundantly clear.
Even in this special lake, which has no size or bag limits on muskies, the DNR showed relatively high exploitation from the mid-1950s to the 1980s, followed by a shift to lower levels of exploitation in the 1990s, and then to a primarily catch-and-release fishery from the mid-2000s to present.
The data covered 1956-2015. Because of the predominantly catch-and-release nature of muskellunge fisheries, determination of vital statistics such as annual survival and maximum growth potential are critical to managing them, according to the agency.
A pair of firsts: Tim Ginnett, UWStevens Point professor and associate dean for academic affairs, was in town for the conference to raise awareness for the university's new online master’s degree program in natural sciences.
The innovative offering is scheduled to begin this fall. It is expected to appeal to working professionals who don’t have the time to attend class in person or don’t live near a university that offers advanced degrees in the natural sciences.
While in town introducing the academic initiative, he was involved in another less welcome first.
On Tuesday afternoon during a conference break, Ginnett was a witness to a shooting on a street adjacent to the hotel. He stayed on site and spent two hours in the back of a Milwaukee Police Department squad car providing details to officers.
That evening before dinner, Ginnett appeared calm as he recounted the story. But it's not the kind of encounter he anticipated at a fish and wildlife conference.
Despite the experience, Ginnett was able to smile when I observed: "Who better to provide eyewitness information than a highly trained and experienced scientist?"
Wildlife in the city: Perhaps it was an omen to the 1,100 fish and wildlife professionals who gathered in Milwaukee. But most certainly it was a testament to the success of a certain wildlife reintroduction on our state.
On Tuesday afternoon as I returned to the Wisconsin Center from the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel office, I noticed an unusual two-legged animal sharing the sidewalk.
A wild turkey scurried from south to north across the intersection of 4th St. and Kilbourn Ave. and paused near a hedge outside the doors to the UW-Milwaukee Panther Arena.
I crossed 4th St. to the southeast corner of the arena and took out my camera.
The bird, a jake, then proceeded north to the Wisconsin Athletic Hall of Fame display. I took a few photos, then left it as it foraged among the gravel on 4th St.
The 2019 Midwest Fish and Wildlife Conference will be held in Cleveland, Ohio.