By Paul J Sniadecki, MLSA Board Director
The Midwest Glacial Lakes Partnership (MGLP) has released its new MGLP Conservation Planner, which provides lake data to inform communication, management, and research to benefit fish habitat and lake ecosystems. Specifically, the MGLP Conservation Planner provides data on likely suitability for fishes, land cover along the shoreline and in the lake’s watershed, and conservation recommendations to supplement existing information for each lake. Its recommended uses include provision of data to inform single-lake management, establishment of a framework for conservation strategies in each lake, identification of patterns in fish habitat due to climate and land use change, and as a supplement during potential prioritization of limited resources among lakes.
The MGLP Conservation Planner provides data on the approximately 40,000 inland lakes over 10 acres in size, within the Midwest Glacial Lakes Partnership’s 8-state footprint, which includes Michigan’s Lakes. The assessment tool is the culmination of a ten-year effort by scientists and managers within the partnership. The Science and Data Team collected data from state, federal, and tribal partners to conduct its fish habitat analyses, and developed the Conservation Planner based on these results.
This writer viewed the data for his home lake in Southwest Michigan by accessing : http://ifrshiny.seas.umich.edu/mglp/ or http://midwestglaciallakes.org/ The assessment tool was highly accurate for my lake.You might want to check your lake.