April 10, 2013
4:00-5:00 pm

Archeological and Cultural Resources Around Water

Wednesday, 4:00-5:00 pm

Former Minnesota State Archaeologist and current Wisconsin DNR Archaeologist Mark Dudzik will provide an overview of Wisconsin’s prehistoric and historic past, and discuss federal and state laws and related processes which can have an impact on both public and private development projects, including those on, under, and adjacent to our lakes and rivers. It’s no surprise that Native Americans and early settlers often located their homes and villages (and later, their cities) along water bodies large and small – just as we do today! Mark’s presentation will be followed by a question and answer period.

 

Developing a Comprehensive Management Approach for the Lake Winnebago System

Wednesday, 4:00-5:00 pm

The Lake Winnebago System, comprised of Lakes Winnebago, Butte des Morts, Poygan, and Winneconne, is one of the largest freshwater lake systems in the United States. The vast size supports numerous recreational opportunities and attracts a wide spectrum of users to the Fox Valley area, resulting in a healthy and growing population. The size also results in a large number of governmental units with jurisdiction and interest in decision-making. The presentation will explore the uniqueness of the Lake Winnebago System and describe efforts to better engage the wide range of users and decision-makers in a shared vision for the future of the Lake Winnebago System. Opportunities for enhanced stewardship are plentiful as are the challenges. Current efforts to foster the stewardship will be highlighted.

 

Lake Data on the Web

Wednesday, 4:00-4:30 pm

Come and learn what’s new on the web. Starting this spring, you can enter lake and invasive species data right from the DNR Lakes website, using a simplified interface to SWIMS. We will walk you through how to enter your data. Learn how to access graphs, reports and data. Find out what’s available and what is coming in the near future. Learn about our blog! Also, be the first to preview our mobile phone-friendly options! Finally, explore our brand new lake and AIS interactive maps.

 

 

New Approaches to Delivering AIS Message: Increasing Compliance to AIS Bait and Draining Laws Through Education and Enforcement

Wednesday, 4:30-5:00 pm

The AIS Partnership will begin a new initiative aimed at gaining higher compliance with aquatic invasive species (AIS) draining and bait laws through education and enforcement in 2013. This effort will build upon the existing partnership with bait shops to better educate anglers on the often confusing bait laws and draining laws. A new draining campaign focused on providing anglers an alternative to keep their catch fresh will be implemented throughout the state with a kick off targeted for fishing opener. Department of Natural Resources Water Guard and Warden teams will also devote time to increasing compliance of both bait and draining laws as part of their AIS Warden Team Events scheduled for spring/summer 2013. Come and learn how you can get involved!

 

 

Shoreline Habitat Projects:

Wednesday, 4:00-5:00 pm

1) Woody Habitat Restoration - What We Have Learned
The importance of wood in the water is becoming increasingly clear and along with shoreline restoration efforts shows real potential as an ecological restoration technique. Fish sticks habitat project is helping to place wood on the shore of willing landowners. Learn how this technique is done and get the latest updates on the project from both a local and statewide point of view.

 

 

2) Woody Structure as Shoreline Protection
Loss of shoreline is a frequent concern of lake shoreland owners. Soil loss at the shore’s edge is caused by both natural and man-made actions: wind, ice, boat wakes, and dams. The intensity of erosion can negatively affect water quality. Rock placement (riprap) at the shoreline does lessen soil loss, and is preferable to other fixes on lakes where high wave energy hits the shoreline. Coir biologs seem to be the only option available to landowners wanting to lessen shoreline erosion on lakes where wave energy is lower. Natural resource managers have observed that the effectiveness of biologs on lower energy lakes is limited. Resource managers are also becoming concerned about the lack of naturally occurring large wood in developed lakes as compared to undeveloped lakes. Anecdotal evidence from sites where natural woody structures were placed in lakes show an overall decrease of shore erosion and an increase in aquatic macrophytes. Those occurrences raise the question: What can natural wood assemblages provide to developed lakes in the way of decreasing soil erosion and increasing water quality? Vilas County’s Land and Water Conservation Department (L&WCD) proposes to investigate the potential of using natural wood at the waters’ edge as barriers to wave energy. We will study whether natural wood structures placed in lakes would provide better protection from shore erosion than are currently available from other bioengineering products. 

 

Wildlife Management for Landowners

Wednesday, 4:00-5:00 pm

By managing your property as an educated and active landowner, your support will diversity wildlife species and create more functional habitat. This presentation will focus on wildlife ecology and habitat management in in forests and wetland/shoreland habitats. Learn about why we need more wildlife, predatory and prey relationships, and the factors that regulate wildlife populations. Come and see some native Wisconsin animals and realize their importance to our beautiful Wisconsin environment.

 

Presenter: Christian W. Cold, Wildlife Technician, WDNR

 

Wisconsin's Healthy Watersheds Initiative: How Ranking the Health of Watersheds Can Help Prioritize Management Practices

Wednesday, 4:00-5:00 pm

Wisconsin is one of the first states conducting a Healthy Watersheds Initiative (HWI) in conjunction with a national effort by EPA. The goal of the HWI is to assess a range of statewide, watershed-level datasets to rank each watershed in the state on scales of health and vulnerability. These rankings can then be used to prioritize and target appropriate funding and management practices to specific watersheds. This talk will describe the intent of the project, the data sets used for ranking, and potential uses of the watershed rankings by state agencies, watershed organizations, and other partners.

 

Evaluation of Statewide Eurasian Watermilfoil Research

Wednesday, 4:00-4:30 pm

For the past several years, the Wisconsin Department of Natural Resources has worked in collaboration with various stakeholders to develop and implement plans for strategic and efficient control of Eurasian watermilfoil (Myriophyllum spicatum, EWM) and to prevent its further spread in Wisconsin. In this session, we will look at Wisconsin's multi-year EWM research project tracking both unmanaged and managed lakes, as well as results from several case studies evaluating the effectiveness of chemical herbicide treatments to control EWM. Preliminary findings of this ongoing research will be presented, and the importance of herbicide concentration monitoring to understand treatment efficacy as well as ecological risks will be discussed. By systematically measuring actual in-lake herbicide concentration and exposure times, as well as subsequent aquatic plant community responses under varying operational conditions, we hope to develop future management recommendations and continue to improve our ability to control invasive aquatic plants while minimizing adverse effects to native species and water quality.

 

 

Hybrid Watermilfoils: Diversity, Ecology, and Management

Wednesday, 4:30-5:00 pm

Any individual that has in its genealogy (or pedigree) one or more matings between invasive Eurasian watermilfoil (Myriophyllum spicatum) and native northern watermilfoil (Myriophyllum sibiricum) is called a hybrid. This presentation will show how Genealogy research will facilitate the development of DNA-based tools to determine best management practices for individual lakes.

 

 

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