Great Lakes Article:

Exotics are biggest threat to Lakeshore
By Amy Hubbell and Chris Olson
Leelanau Enterprise
Posted October 19, 2007

Dead waterfowl found sporadically along the Lake Michigan shoreline dramatically illustrate the impact of invasive species on Sleeping Bear Dunes National Lakeshore.

Lynn McClure, Midwest regional director for the National Parks Conservation Association (NPCA), witnessed the problem first-hand during a Labor Day pleasure trip to Leelanau County. She called it “alarming.”

“I used to come up there all the time when I was a kid. We’d stay in Glen Arbor,” said McClure, whose Chicago-based group issued a first-of-its-kind report on the effects of pollution and invasive species on the six national parks sited along the Great Lakes. “The common threat all face is invasive species.”

The report, released Tuesday, highlights threats to natural features and cultural sites in six national parks along the Great Lakes. In addition to Sleeping Bear, the report dealt with problems facing Pictured Rocks National Lakeshore, Isle Royale National Park, and Keweenaw Historical National Park in the Upper Peninsula; Indiana Dunes National Park along southern Lake Michigan and Apostle Islands National Lakeshore along Wisconsin’s northern coast in Lake Superior.

“There’s a lot of attention being paid to Great Lakes water quality and the release of ballast water,” said McClure, whose association conducts studies of all national parks. “It was clustered because, in a sense, they are all facing the same sort of issues.”

Invasive species were listed as the most common threat to natural and cultural resources in four of the six parks included in the study.

In Sleeping Bear Dunes National Lakeshore, the threat takes the form of Baby’s Breath on land and quagga and zebra mussels under water.

The lake bed has been taken over by the mussels, and their feeding habits have led to the shorebird die off, a result of Botulism.

“Baby’s Breath is the No. 1 ‘weed’ impacting our dunes,” Sleeping Bear biologist Ken Hyde said. “Within our forest areas the Emerald Ash Borer and garlic mustard are the big worry.”

Over the summer a crew of 12 people spent about five weeks removing Baby’s Breath from 175 acres of dunes within the lakeshore. Work crews, made up of volunteers from the Nature Conservancy and workers with the National Park Service, used shovels to dig out the plant’s roots.

“It’s the only way to make sure the weed is gone,” he said, adding that there are about 1,025 acres of dunes infected with the plant. “We got a good start on getting rid of it.”

At Pictured Rocks near Munising, non-native species competing for resources with native plants and animals have contributed to a decline in species such as fresh water clams and native brook trout.

“Pollution” was listed as a concern in two of the six national parks examined. At Indiana Dunes Park, based in Porter, Ind., pollution from ozone, sulfur dioxide sulfate and mercury from surrounding industrial facilities significantly harms the air quality of the park. Contamination from runoff, industrial pollution and sewage systems degrades parks waters, including Lake Michigan.

In the remote Isle Royale National Park, airborne mercury and sulfur dioxide deposited in park waters and lands are of grave concern to managers.

In addition, the NPCA report details park-by-park funding and staffing levels, which could also impact the parks natural and cultural assets.

“There’s a threat from the lack of staff to patrol sensitive areas which has resulted in damage at Sleeping Bear, Pictured Rocks and Indiana Dunes,” McClure said.

Damage can result from hikers straying off trails or rising off-road vehicles. “There are two rangers to patrol the entire 35-mile shoreline (at Sleeping Bear) and the thousands of acres at the park.”

NPCA launched its state of the parks program in 2000 to assess the health of national parks across the country.