GLRI Wildlife Health Event Reporter (GLRI-WHER): May 2012

Thursday, May 24, 2012

Monitoring Begins on the Beaches of Lake Superior

Monitoring of Lake Superior beaches will begin after Memorial Day. The Minnesota Department of Health will be monitoring the water quality along the Lake Superior shoreline from Duluth to Grand Marais, which includes 39 public beaches.

Staff will be checking the water to detect the presence of E.coli bacteria or other harmful pathogens or contamination. The samples will be analyzed once a week from the beaches, while samples from the most heavily used beaches will be analyzed twice weekly.

The results will be posted immediately to the telephone hotline and beach website at www.MNBeaches.org.

Northland's News Center - www.northlandsnewscenter.com

21 May 2012

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GLRI-WHER Mission

This site provides news and information about the online tool, the Great Lakes Restoration Initiative - Wildlife Health Event Reporter (GLRI-WHER). The application was designed to enable the public to submit observations of sick, injured or dead wildlife, as well as environmental observations on the shores of the Great Lakes.

Injured or dead wildlife, as well as evidence of algal blooms, can be an indication that an area is being affected by a Botulism outbreak. Botulism Type C has been known to cause extensive waterfowl mortality in the western United States since the early 1900s. Botulism Type E's appearance in the Great Lakes began in the early 1960s in Lakes Huron and Michigan.

Over the years, the incidences of botulism in the Great Lakes have increased steadily, and in the 1998-2001 period was responsible for the deaths of thousands of birds in Lakes Huron and Erie. Scientists working in state, federal, and non-profit agencies are looking for your help to identify events that could be important in research on Avian Botulism and protecting birds from this disease.

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Thursday, May 24, 2012

Monitoring Begins on the Beaches of Lake Superior