Species dwindling except one that needs it

Just for a moment let's return to the fact that smallmouth bass are becoming established in Red Lake. No sooner was that fact reported than people started wondering what species they would replace. That knee jerk reaction shows that humans actually do know something about ecology and that we know it at the gut, instinctive level. There are only so many resources available in an ecosystem; if a new species shows up, another species must decline.

You can liken a lake to an aquarium. It's a closed system. There is a set amount of food available. If a new fish is added an old fish must go. 

"Please don't let it be walleye," everybody is praying. Walleye are just about everybody's favourite fish. They are good to eat and they are beautiful, which seems to be important.

"Let it be some ugly fish," they say, "like northern pike or, or that really disgusting fish -- ling." 

Ling (aka burbot, aka eelpout, aka mariah) are one of Red Lake's native pelagic (deep water) species. Others are lake trout, whitefish and tulibee or lake herring. Here's something that might make walleye fishermen sleep easier: all the pelagic species in Red Lake declined for some unknown reason decades ago. Except for lake trout, they never recovered. Lake trout are slowly coming back through a stocking program. 

Soooo, there was actually a void left in the food chain. It is looking like smallmouth bass are now filling it. 

"Whew!"

Now I would like to bring up what will seem like an irrelevant fact. Last year was my 50th high school reunion. I graduated from Kirtland High School in Ohio in 1971. "What does this have to do with smallmouth bass in Red Lake?" you are asking. Just give me a minute, would you? I'm going to tie it altogether in a couple of sentences!

Only one year earlier, April 22, 1970, the first Earth Day was celebrated. My class was the first to have a whole year to do something about the environment before we graduated. Do you know what we, the newly-minted ecologists, were worried about? The Population Explosion! There were what seemed at the time an incredible 3.6 billion people in the world, and it was theorized that this could eventually grow to six billion unless the entire world population started having fewer children.

Guess what? A couple of weeks ago the world population hit eight billion! And also guess what? Thousands of species have gone extinct and more are disappearing every day. The Earth, just like a lake, just like an aquarium, is a closed system.

We are the smallmouth bass of the world. Only, in our case, there wasn't a void that we filled. We are replacing everything else.

A study released today shows that one fifth of 50,000 species studied in Canada -- this includes plants, fungi and insects -- are in danger of extinction. 

My generation wasn't able to control our population and the whole world has suffered, just as we feared it would in 1970.

All the creatures are on the move

A lone coyote searches for prey among the cedars

 

Isn't he gorgeous?

What a beautiful sight

This beautiful buck seemed to be posing for a statue at our home in Nolalu

 

Nature notes 2022: bass and moths

My first fish, a nice smallie

The smallmouth bass population, it would seem, is increasing exponentially in Red Lake. Just about everybody we talked to from camp had caught at least one last summer. Many people had multiple catches. This is a new trend. We saw our first bass about 10 years ago.

A young lad from one of the cabins at the west end discovered his minnow trap this summer contained lots of young bass which would seem to indicate next year's catchable population will continue to grow.

Brenda and I only fished from the boat twice this summer since we were laser-focused on completing the exterior of our cabin. We can catch walleye off the dock but I have developed an allergic-like reaction to them that triggers painful pseudo-gout in my knees. Actually we have always preferred northern pike anyway so when we took off in the boat, we went looking for Esox lucius. On our first trip the cotton fluff from poplar trees was so thick on the lake surface it immediately jammed our reels and we came home empty-handed. On the second foray which was Aug. 21 -- the day I finished installing the metal roofing -- we actually fished for about two hours.

My first fish was the smallmouth bass that you see above. The pike really weren't biting very well but we eventually got a couple in the low-20 inches which we took home for supper. In addition to the two boat trips I did catch a few pike off the dock over the summer and we feasted on those as well. And a couple of friends from camp also donated us one.

Last year I caught an enormous smallmouth during the few hours that I fished for pike.

In other news, all of Northwestern Ontario seems to have been invaded this summer by Gypsy moths.

The moths were a plague inside everybody's cabins, coming in every time you opened the door at night. At home in Nolalu I discovered several inches of dead moths in our wood-burning stove this fall.

We saw defoliated quaking aspen trees from the lake but curiously, nobody seems to have seen the caterpillars. Hard to figure, that one. 

On a sad note, no loons successfully fledged this year. Apparently the record high water ruined all their nests.