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The pollution is killing animals and affecting the lakes in a negative way

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- steal food from native species, clog water pipes, and attach to docks
- make swimming dangerous because of their sharp shells

- multiply rapidly- up to 70,000 mussels can thrive in a single square meter of water - numbers are rapidly increasing -accumulates toxic chemicals 300,000 times higher than concentrations in the environment - these chemicals become more concentrated in animals as the move up the food chain

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-Old toxic waste can leak into waterways.
-There are as many as 250 leak/dumps on the shores of the Niagara River alone.

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-habitat loss is a big worry
-When settlers moved into the Great Lakes region in the 1800s, they cleared patches of forest for farms. Later, loggers cut down more, and still later more land was cleared for factories and cities.

-When habitats are lost, the plants and animals that live there are often lost as well.

kg ds

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-humans have made it so the number of wetlands go down between 1978 and 2000 around 17 percent.

-humans have made open land go down five percent between 1978 and 2000

-humans have made urban areas go up 25 percent in between 1978 and 2000

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Problem: Soil is packing up in the rivers

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Problem: Soil is packing up in the rivers

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-polluted soil that has settled at the bottom of lakes and rivers. Removing such sediment is both difficult and costly. Water flows so slowly out of most of the Great Lakes that pollutants entering the lakes are likely to stay.-

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-in the past, wetlands were viewed by many people as worthless bogs, and over time,

-Like forests, wetlands were gradually lost as the Great Lakes region developed
-more than half of the wetlands in the Great Lakes region disappeared.

kg ds

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the water not absorbed by soil travels over the ground,   picking up pollutants from soil and then into lakes and rivers. Runoff from storms also picks up waste from industrial and construction sites.

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- Ponds overflowed and carp escaped into the rivers - carp are migrating toward Lake Michigan
- Many people fear that one day the lakes will become giant carp ponds

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- Sucks blood from other fish
- Kill more lake trout in LS today than commercial fishing and sport fishing combined
- Almost destroyed the trout population in the GL
-(including the silver lamprey, the American brook lamprey, and the northern brook lamprey) but the exotic sea lamprey is far larger and more predaceous than native lampreys.

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Problem: Scientists estimate that there are more than 185 invasive species today

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Problem: Scientists estimate that there are more than 185 invasive species today

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-sand mining is causing the great lakes sand dunes to be in trouble

-the biggest threat to the sand dunes is the building of homes and buisnesses

-whenever a car or person walks on the dunes it damages vegitation and erodes the dunes.

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Problem: Alewives (1969) Background info

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Problem: Alewives (1969) Background info

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- 9 out of 10 lbs of fish in the GL are alewives
- Alewives compete with other fish for food, and by food I mean native GL species
- When die-off season comes, alewives wash up on shore, and, one thing leading to another, are eventually infested with maggots, making the beach unbearable

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-invasive plant that hurts the Great Lakes ecosystem
-Dense growth along shoreland areas makes it difficult to access open water
-Overtakes habitat and outcompetes native aquatic plants- potentially lowering diversity
-Provides unsuitable shelter, food, and nesting habitat for native animals

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-algae is damaging lake eries shoreline habitat

-alga is taking over the great lakes

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You may say that the Lakes have greatly improved over the past fifty years, but zebra mussel populations have been increasing. Zebra mussels can contain toxic chemicals, so whenever they are eaten, the chemicals move up and harm the rest of the food chain.