Whitefish are a beloved and iconic Michigan species that have been a staple of the state’s cuisine for centuries.
But their numbers have dwindled drastically recently leaving some worried that the fish will no longer populate the lower Great Lakes.
WKAR’s Clara Lincolnhol spoke with Bridge Michigan reporter Kelly House who recently reported on why the fish population is declining and whitefish's cultural and economic significance to Michiganders.
Interview Highlights
On how invasive quagga mussels are threatening whitefish
Scientists have been responding to the threat by trying to find some way to suppress mussel populations in the Great Lakes. They now cover essentially every inch of the lakebed, and the problem is that they're filter feeders, and they have filtered away the plankton and nutrients that other species in the Great Lakes really rely upon for food. So, these baby whitefish are born. The only thing they eat in their first days of life is phytoplankton, and those plankton are now nowhere to be found, so these babies are essentially starving to death before they ever have the opportunity to grow.
On the future of whitefish in parts of the Great Lakes
We're essentially at this mismatch between how much time we have left and long it's going to take to find a solution. None of the scientists I spoke to believe that we're going to avoid collapse. At this point, the debate is, really, are whitefish going to disappear entirely from the vast majority of their historic waters in these two lakes? Or will there be a few of them still swimming around here and there, but not enough to really play a role in the ecosystem? They would be what's called a remnant population. They're there, but they're not there in numbers big enough to really notice.
On the economic impact of losing whitefish populations
Businesses that rely on commercial fishing in any capacity are feeling this. Whitefish are the commercial fish in Michigan. They amount to 80% of the catch and 90% of the profit, roughly. You take them out, and the commercial fishing industry collapses too, and that's what's happening. So, I spoke with some fishermen who, you know, just 10 years ago, were pulling up nets with a thousand pounds of white fish in a single net. One of those very same fishermen, I went out with him, and he pulled up 12 fish.
Interview Transcript
Sophia Saliby: Whitefish are a beloved and iconic Michigan species that have been a staple of the state’s cuisine for centuries.
But their numbers have dwindled drastically recently leaving some worried that the fish will no longer populate the lower Great Lakes.
WKAR’s Clara Lincolnhol spoke with Bridge Michigan reporter Kelly House to explain what's happened to the fish population and why.
Clara Lincolnhol: Why are whitefish disappearing?
Kelly House: So, the root of the problem for whitefish is really this invasion of invasive quagga mussels that has been worsening over the course of several decades in Michigan. So, it's not a new problem, but what's new is that this gradually gathering storm has really erupted now, and whitefish are now on the brink of collapse, if not already mid-collapse, in the vast majority of Lakes Michigan and Huron, which historically have been sort of the waters to catch whitefish in the Great Lakes.
What's new is that this gradually gathering storm has really erupted now, and whitefish are now on the brink of collapse, if not already mid-collapse, in the vast majority of Lakes Michigan and Huron.
Lincolnhol: So, it sounds like quagga mussels are mostly to blame for the decline. How are legislators and scientists responding to the threat?
House: So, scientists have been responding to the threat by trying to find some way to suppress mussel populations in the Great Lakes. They now cover essentially every inch of the lakebed, and the problem is that they're filter feeders, and they have filtered away the plankton and nutrients that other species in the Great Lakes really rely upon for food. So, these baby whitefish are born. The only thing they eat in their first days of life is phytoplankton, and those plankton are now nowhere to be found, so these babies are essentially starving to death before they ever have the opportunity to grow.
What's being done is a lot of experimentation to try to develop some sort of weapon against mussels. There are efforts to try to smother them under mats that you sort of place on the bottom of the lakebed and try to get the mussels to die. There are some chemical solutions that work, but the problem is, mussels are so widespread you can't target them. So, you could be deploying these solutions and killing off everything else that lives in these waters too. And these mats that can smother mussels, well, how are you going to deploy those in an area that's literally thousands of square miles?
So, we don't really have a clear solution here, and some of the folks I spoke to have argued we are not tackling this crisis as aggressively as lawmakers and taxpayers and everyone else have tackled previous invasive species crises. So, there's some debate about whether we're really trying hard enough to deal with this problem.
Whitefish, historically, have been among the most abundant native fish in the Great Lakes, and that's why they've sort of earned our love and respect as a society.
Lincolnhol: How does the fish's disappearance impact the Great Lakes ecosystems?
House: It's a huge impact on the Great Lakes ecosystem. Whitefish, historically, have been among the most abundant native fish in the Great Lakes, and that's why they've sort of earned our love and respect as a society. Long before Europeans settled the Great Lakes, Native Americans were eating them as a primary part of their diet. European settlers came along and did the exact same thing. So, generations of people really were sustaining themselves on this fish.
More recently, of course, our diets have changed. Our food systems have changed. Now, most of us view whitefish as sort of a culinary treat that is a marker of home, right? You go Up North, a lot of people have traditions about getting a whitefish sandwich or stopping into a smoke shop and getting whitefish jerky or pate. So, that's the cultural piece of it.
And then, of course, any native species that is abundant in an ecosystem is a linchpin of that ecosystem. Other things eat it. You know, it eats other things. It's part of this interconnected web of species that if you take one of the most abundant things out, well, you're probably going to have declines of other species as well.
Lincolnhol: Is there a point of no return here?
House: There definitely is a point of no return, and many people believe we probably have reached it. Again, this is a problem that's been brewing for decades. In that time, we have not found a solution to the mussel problem. But also in that time, in most of Lakes Michigan and Huron, whitefish, have essentially been failing to reproduce, again, because their babies are dying upon birth.
We're essentially at this mismatch between how much time we have left and long it's going to take to find a solution.
So, the fish that remain in the lakes are growing old, they're going to die soon, and it's highly unlikely that we are going to find some magic solution to the mussel problem before that happens. So, we're essentially at this mismatch between how much time we have left and long it's going to take to find a solution. None of the scientists I spoke to believe that we're going to avoid collapse.
At this point, the debate is, really, are whitefish going to disappear entirely from the vast majority of their historic waters in these two lakes? Or will there be a few of them still swimming around here and there, but not enough to really play a role in the ecosystem? They would be what's called a remnant population. They're there, but they're not there in numbers big enough to really notice.
Lincolnhol: Since the whitefish has historically drawn in tourism and been a staple of local economies, how are businesses that rely on the fish responding to its disappearance?
House: So, businesses that rely on commercial fishing in any capacity are feeling this. Whitefish are the commercial fish in Michigan. They amount to 80% of the catch and 90% of the profit, roughly. You take them out, and the commercial fishing industry collapses too, and that's what's happening. So, I spoke with some fishermen who, you know, just 10 years ago, were pulling up nets with a thousand pounds of white fish in a single net. One of those very same fishermen, I went out with him, and he pulled up 12 fish.
The customer might think that [the whitefish] coming from that dock overlooking Lake Michigan where they're eating this fish dinner, but odds are it's coming from Green Bay, Wisconsin or Lake Superior.
You can't make a living on that, so people are leaving the industry, and then it trickles down. Smoke shacks and restaurants are having a harder time sourcing fish, and when they do get it, the customer might think that it's coming from that dock overlooking Lake Michigan where they're eating this fish dinner, but odds are it's coming from Green Bay, Wisconsin or Lake Superior or maybe even further afield. And long term, if these declines continue a pace, it may become tougher and tougher to keep it on the menu at all.
Saliby: That was WKAR's Clara Lincolnhol speaking with Bridge Michigan reporter Kelly House about the decline of the whitefish in the Great Lakes.
This conversation has been edited for clarity and conciseness.
This story was brought to you as part of a partnership between WKAR and Michigan State University’s Knight Center for Environmental Journalism.