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Yep exactly what Brother Nature said -

There's billions of alewife in Lake Michigan, and the amount that they reproduce annually would dwarf any small migration from the Atlantic. It's really unlikely that there's any amount of migration into the upper great lakes, or really the lower great lakes from the Atlantic though.

The alewife from the Atlantic CAN get into the upper great lakes, but they don't really have a big reason or even the capability to go all this way on an annual basis. Think of the original invasion as a slow colonization taking the better part of a decade, rather than a bum-rush of alewife from the Atlantic. Such as, alewife build a population in Lake Ontario, and then it spills over into Lake Erie, takes a couple years to build, and then some move into Lake St. Clair and Lake Huron, build a population there, it expands, and spills into Lake Michigan and expands after a few years.

Alewife were likely always present in Lake Ontario, but they were first detected in Erie in 1931, Huron in 1933, Michigan in 1949, and Lake Superior in 1954. So you can see that it took 2 years for them to go from Erie to Huron, and then 16 to go from Huron to Michigan, and another 5 to get to Superior. 

 

Btw on the lake trout, let's at least use accurate facts when discussing stocking policy. Whether or not you agree with the policy it's at least a good idea to start with correct information! Otherwise you might draw erroneous conclusions

It's in fact the USFWS that stocks lake trout, not the USDA.   And there are not 6 million per year stocked in Lake Michigan, it is about 1/3rd of that (2.3 million or so). Here's a graph of the last 15 years I threw together from the online stocking database. Lake trout were cut to about 2.3 million from about 3.5 million, in large part due to concerns over the forage base.  There's very few lake trout stocked outside of tribal waters at this point. I would expect any potential future stocking increases in the next couple years to chinook-focused, but each state will decide how to implement their own stocking quotas


 

Thanks for the correction. You are right it's the USFWS, not the USDA. And also about the numbers, thanks for the graph showing it's more like 3M on average, not 6M. I was probably quoting a much older report, and not the recent stocking numbers.

About the location where they are stocked, I found a graphic showing about 1/3 are stocked in the southern refuge. Seems close enough for that stocking to be responsible for the population we're catching. Also, when you say each state will decide on stocking, it doesn't seem that way based on the current negotiation process. MDNR plans were shot down for 2022. 

Lake Michigan Committee

The Lake Michigan Committee consists of senior staff members from Illinois Department of Natural Resources, Indiana Department of Natural Resources, Michigan Department of Natural Resources, Wisconsin Department of Natural Resources, and the Chippewa-Ottawa Resource Authority. The Committee's purposes are to:

consider issues and problems of common concern to Illinois, Indiana, Michigan, Wisconsin, and/or the Chippewa Ottawa Resource Authority (CORA);
develop and coordinate joint state/provincial/federal/tribal management programs and research projects;
consider issues pertinent to, or referred by, the commission that are within the LMC's authority or under its auspices;
decide issues for referral to the commission or Council of Lake Committees (CLC) for direction, resolution or support;
serve as a forum for state, tribal, and federal agencies, and others, on a need/request basis; and
decide protocol for LMC operation, establish operational procedures for internal committees and develop meeting agendas.
Lake Michigan Committee Terms of Reference

Members
Brad Eggold, Wisconsin Department of Natural Resources, Chair
Tom Gorenflo, Chippewa-Ottawa Resource Authority, Vice Chair
Jeremy Price, Indiana Department of Natural Resources
Vic Santucci, Illinois Department of Natural Resources
Jay Wesley, Michigan Department of Natural Resources
This is the group that makes the decisions you are referring to. Not political, science based and has worked fine all these years.

LMC decides overall stocking quotas, and they do it by consensus - everybody has to agree to move forward with a change, whether a cut or increase. Michigan wanted to increase their overall quota , but there was not consensus to increase stocking at the LMC, mostly due to the pandemic data gaps. 

Each state decides how to use their stocking quota depending on their own circumstances (hatchery logistics, angler desires, return rates, etc). As long as they stay within the agreed upon quota

 

Jay Wesley has alluded multiple times including in the post I linked above that the reason they did not permit the Michigan increase was due to the lockup in the consent decree negotiations.

Am I missing something?

 

I understand everyone's thinking and appreciate it. This got some real discussion going.

SteveK wrote:

Jay Wesley has alluded multiple times including in the post I linked above that the reason they did not permit the Michigan increase was due to the lockup in the consent decree negotiations.

Am I missing something?


 

I think you're misreading what he said  - it's "because we are still in consent decree negotiations AND did not have LMC consensus" to increase stocking

Not "LMC didn't have consensus because of consent decree"

 

I really don't know that's true. 

Maybe you could share the resource for where the LMC cited lack of PPR data as the reason the Michigan increases were not approved?

Lots of reputable folks on that post interpreted his statement the same way I did. I do see he is being very careful with his words and leaving the ambiguity in there, but it's clear enough if you realize he's trying to be politically correct. 

See his attached comment as more evidence the consent negotiations are at the root of the lack of approval.

I can only refer personally to what Indiana's LMC representative has indicated to me was the LMC's hesitancy as a whole. I don't want to speak for Jay Wesley, you'd have to ask him. Remember that although the Consent Decree is a huge deal for Michigan, it doesn't really affect the other 3 states (WI, ILL, IN). In general the LMC's main issue is making sure predator/prey is balanced, IE overall predator equivalents in the lake

GLSI submitted a FOIA request regarding that recent LMC decision and read through correspondence/meeting minutes and this was their takeaway FWIW, which aligns with what I have been saying. BTW one of the reasons it took awhile for them to get the Indiana results was because it was initially filed with the wrong division (Division of Water) and nobody in Fish and Wildlife was even aware of it for some time.

Here are the results of our FOIA returns.   The MDNR responded first and very promptly to our request providing the meeting minutes before our FOIA was processed.  We appreciated that.  Illinois responded next but we spent months following up with the states of Wisconsin and Indiana to respond to our legally filed FOIA requests.  We spent hours pouring through the documents and emails and we can report we did not find any major concerns.   We could sum up our findings that the fisheries managers are still worried about over stocking the lake and want to be sure the fishery remains healthy.  They had previously agreed to wait 3 full years from the last stocking increase to evaluate it’s results and wanted to wait one more year to complete this evaluation before another increase

Managers have been very leery about flying blind with the last PPR model using 2019 data, since none was collected in 2020. The most recent PPR should be coming out soon and will inform this year's decision. As I've said previously, i'd be surprised if there wasn't a modest stocking increase