#DNR Wisconsin

[wausaupilot]

After a dramatic decline, lake trout have recovered in most of Lake Superior

Assessments show as many or more fish as there were prior to an invasion of sea lamprey.

By Danielle Kaeding– Wisconsin Public Radio After decades of work, fishery managers say lake trout have fully recovered in most of Lake Superior after the invasive, fish-killing sea lamprey decimated their numbers. The Lake Superior Committee of the Great Lakes Fishery Commission, which is made up of state, tribal and Canadian natural resource managers, announced the population’s recovery…

[deanschlichting]

Sheboygan marsh, Sheboygan county Wisconsin

[mapsontheweb]

Ecological Landscapes of Wisconsin, per Wisconsin DNR

[rjzimmerman]

Excerpt from this story from Inside Climate News:

A recent oil spill in Wisconsin is exacerbating already tense relationships between state officials and several groups that are fighting to stop a controversial pipeline project from moving forward.

For years, the Bad River Band of Lake Superior Chippewa, along with several environmental groups, have been fighting to stop Enbridge Energy from replacing 41 miles of its Line 5 pipeline that runs through northern Wisconsin. The groups say the project will endanger wildlife and sensitive wetlands used by tribal members.

Wisconsin officials approved two key permits for that project last month following a lengthy environmental review that concluded the Line 5 project could be safely constructed and maintained. But opponents are calling that decision a mistake, pointing to an oil spill at a separate Enbridge pipeline in the state that was reported just days before the Line 5 permit approvals.

On Nov. 11, an Enbridge technician discovered a valve failure that resulted in the release of nearly 70,000 gallons of crude oil from the company’s Line 6 pipeline in Jefferson County, Wisconsin, west of Milwaukee, according to a federal accident report released last week. In the report, investigators noted that the pipeline “was likely leaking for an extended period of time,” and that the employee found the leak during a routine check—indications that Enbridge didn’t immediately notice the problem. The report also said the spill did not result in any injuries or deaths, and that the oil contaminated soil but not groundwater.

Opponents of the Line 5 project say the Line 6 spill, as well as how it was handled, has further eroded their trust in state regulators. Some also criticized the DNR for not making information about the spill immediately available to the public. 

“The very same week that DNR issued permits for Line 5 based on its conclusion that the risk for a spill would be ‘low,’ DNR was investigating a significant oil leak on another Enbridge pipeline,” Tony Wilkin Gibart, executive director of Midwest Environmental Advocates, said in a statement. “The faulty segment on Line 6 in Jefferson County has a leak detection system, but that system failed to even detect the leak.”

The spill is Enbridge’s worst in Wisconsin, the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel reported, surpassing a 2012 incident that spilled 50,000 gallons in Adams County. But Robert Blanchard, chairman of the Bad River Band of Lake Superior Chippewa, said he didn’t learn about the incident until last week. He called it “a red flag” that authorities didn’t publicly release details of the leak until a month after Enbridge reported finding it.

[anamateurnaturalist]

My husband was showing me pictures he was considering entering in the county fair and he shows me this one and I got all excited.

I believe this is a dwarf or snow trillium. According to Wikipedia they are listed as least concern but the Wisconsin DNR lists them as threatened. I've never seen one before.

[crows-feet-studio]

Midwest fish series! The sweet Starhead Topminnow ❤️ This little fish used to populate the wetlands around the lower Wisconsin river. In the late 2000’s, the US went all-in on corn-based ethanol and corn production ramped up to an insane degree. All that new farming caused a great deal of toxic runoff that destroyed the floodplains and sloughs around the lower Wisconsin, and the topminnows vanished. HOWEVER, due to the incredible efforts of conservationists with the WI dnr, led by John Lyons, a small population has been moved above the Prairie du Sac dam (pictured) and is thriving in clean water.

[voyagerprobe]

shes got that wisconsin dnr interior design neopussy

[fidelius-dt]

Some pictures I took on my trip to Crex meadows wildlife management area. Taken on a Nikon D5000

[glitchlight]

DIRT

so, what makes a dry gravel prairie so special? I tried to look it up, but it flew over my head.

does it have a weird soil or a cool ecosystem or some sort of gravel based lifeform?

I will admit I'd not quite heard of these before; most of my work professionally has been in the Indiana/Ohio/Kentucky region, and as an environmental consultant i don't get to read as much surficial geology maps as I'd like. With that said, having done some review, the Illinois DNR helped.

So basically the reason gravel prairies exist is due to the depositional environments created by the glacial retreat from the last glacial maximum (in what is referred to as the Wisconsin Glaciation), which was an approximately 10,000 year period approximately from 21 to 11 thousand years ago. Colloquially, people who never set foot in a geology course might not understand the scale of what a glaciation period looks like; we are talking about ice as tall as mountains covering the majority of continents. In Manhattan, approximately a mile of ice sat over the island.

So naturally glaciers are essentially bulldozers that obliterate topography and surface geology, and absorb it into the ice sheet as they advance. Then, when they retreat, sediments are sorted by water and wind based on how large they are.

Mineral sediments are generally divided by particle size into five categories: clays, silts, sands, gravels, and boulders. Clays are super fine and easily wash away with the meltwater. Silts are small enough that they can get picked up by dust storms and modest floods. Sands and gravels and boulders aren't though.

So what ends up happening with them is that they are often poorly sorted by the glacial meltwater, which include both glacial floods from ice dammed lakes melting in violent events, and thousands of streams that fed into local rivers. Essentially every river in the midwest has enormous beds of glacial sand and gravel from thousands of years of meltwater carrying deposits until the glaciers receded farther north than their watershed.

(here's a portion of the surficial geologic quadrangle for the Cincinnati area; the area in yellow, which encompasses much of the downtown metro area, is a 100-150' thick layer of glacial outwash.)

The other main way glaciers drop sediment high in proportions of sands, gravels, and boulders in mounds called kames, or other types of glacial fluvial features, such as eskers, which are relict features of water sorting that happened within or on top of the glaciers; after all, glaciers were three-dimensional structures melting in complex patterns. The kames and eskers seen on the land surface now, they're essentially upside down rivers and ponds that fell out! Very weird stuff!

Anyways, ecology loves a weird niche, and soils high in sands and gravels are going to have different properties from the surrounding soils, namely tending to be dryer and less fertile. Accordingly, the species that would develop in these areas would be different from the surrounding areas, and adapt to those different conditions. One can imagine pre-development species traveling along the small eskers or river gravel beds, but the limited spatial extent of the gravel deposits means that these endemic species (meaning they live nowhere else) are more prone than other populations to habitat fragmentation and loss, which is why preservation of the remaining gravel prairies are important and!!

Check out this preservation battle that is actively ongoing in Illinois regarding dry gravel praries just so a fuckin airport can expand a stupid road.

[nsomniacsdream]

Hahaha Republicans in Wisconsin have gotten the supreme court to agree that term limits don't apply to them! Legally! This guy was supposed to leave in 2021 and just didn't leave. Now his republican colleagues are being all coy about whether they'll leave when their terms are up, because the governor is a Democrat! The republican party is just openly against democracy at this point!

[im-making-an-effort]

This is my entry to the Wisconsin DNR sticker competition! Every year, high schoolers get to design the admittance sticker for the DNR’s parks and forests, and this is my submission. I made it using references from both red and white oak leaves, an ash leaf, a maple seed, an acorn, and a pinecone! All are native Wisconsin flora, and according to the rules of the competition only four colors could be used, which I complied with. This piece was made in adobe illustrator. I hope you like it!

[wausaupilot]

Variable temperatures mean dangerous ice conditions

Wisconsin DNR: 'No ice is safe ice'.

By Evan Casey– Wisconsin Public Radio Experts say the recent fluctuation in temperature across Wisconsin has made for dangerous conditions for ice fishers and hobbyists who are trekking out on lakes and ponds. Much of Wisconsin experienced cold temperatures over the past few weeks. But at least two people in southeast Wisconsin had to be rescued after they fell through the ice last weekend when…

[deanschlichting]

Nichols creek, Sheboygan county, Wisconsin

[miwisconsin]

Después de 4 años de búsqueda del cuerpo de Cassandra Ayon, hoy el Departamento de Justicia de Wisconsin (DOJ), en colaboración con las oficinas del Sheriff de los condados de Clark y Marathon y la Oficina del Fiscal de Distrito del Condado de Clark, anunciaron hoy que los restos de Cassandra Ayon, vista por última vez en Unity, Wis., el 3 de octubre de 2020, fueron encontrados en una propiedad privada cerca de CTH P y Abe Lincoln Road en el pueblo de Brighton, condado de Marathon, Wis., el sábado 30 de noviembre de 2024. “Mi corazón está con la familia y los amigos de Cassandra,” dijo el Fiscal General Josh Kaul. “Gracias a todos los que han trabajado para obtener justicia y brindar respuestas en este caso impactante.” “Aunque estuvimos satisfechos con el resultado del juicio y sentimos que se había hecho justicia en nombre de Cassandra Ayon, nunca dejamos de buscarla,” dijo Melissa Inlow, Fiscal de Distrito del Condado de Clark. “Esperamos que el hallazgo de sus restos brinde un sentido de cierre y finalización a su familia y a todos los que la extrañan y lloran su pérdida.” “Este caso ha estado en nuestras mentes durante años,” dijo Scott Haines, Sheriff del Condado de Clark. “Nuestros corazones y pensamientos están con la familia y los amigos de Cassandra Ayon.” Jesús Contreras-Pérez, de Mosinee, Wis., fue sentenciado a cadena perpetua sin posibilidad de libertad condicional el 12 de septiembre de 2022, en relación con la desaparición de Cassandra Ayon. Un jurado declaró a Contreras-Pérez culpable de homicidio intencional en primer grado, ocultamiento de un cadáver y acecho con daño corporal tras un juicio en 5 de junio de 2022. El DOJ de Wisconsin trabajó en colaboración con la Oficina del Sheriff del Condado de Clark, la Oficina del Sheriff del Condado de Marathon, la Oficina del Fiscal de Distrito del Condado de Clark, la Oficina del Médico Forense del Condado de Marathon, el DNR, el Laboratorio de Crimen del Estado de Wisconsin y la Patrulla Estatal de Wisconsin en la recuperación de los restos. En el 2020, MIWISCONSIN participó activamente en la búsqueda de Cassandra Ayon y entrevistamos a su hermana Jennifer Ayon en ese momento. Read the full article

[bigbuckregistry]

Deer News - October 2024

Welcome to the October 2024 Edition of the Big Buck Registry's Deer News, news you might have missed over the last month.

In this edition, first Jim takes us to Michigan to explore a Michigan Bill that Seeks to Reverse Deer Hunting Restrictions for Youth, Veterans, and Disabled Hunters. Then Dusty covers a story in Wisconsin about the Wisconsin DNR Initiating a  Review of Deer Management Units Ahead of the 2025 Season.  Jay explores the New York DEC Transition to Electronic Deer Tags for the 2024-2025 Hunting Season.  Dusty covers the latest on CWD and Jay discusses deer overpopulation, both stories from Virginia.  Finally, Jim wraps up with a CWD story out of Texas.  

  DON'T MISS THIS ONE!

[researchbuzz]

Wisconsin Water, GPT-4o, Microsoft Teams, More: Thursday Afternoon ResearchBuzz, August 22, 2024

NEW RESOURCES Wisconsin Department of Natural Resources: DNR Announces New Online Tool For Analyzing Water Quality On Lakes And Streams. “The Wisconsin Department of Natural Resources (DNR) today announced the release of the Wisconsin Water Explorer, a web-based tool that can help Wisconsin residents address concerns about the quality of water in their local lakes or rivers.” TWEAKS AND…