LANSING, Mich. — State fisheries crews are spending November on southern Lake Michigan gathering eggs from lake whitefish, part of a push to keep the native fish from losing the genetic variety it needs to survive, the Michigan Department of Natural Resources announced Monday, Nov. 9.
The work stretches along the nearshore waters from South Haven north to Muskegon and is expected to last about a month. Crews are setting nets over reefs and shallow nearshore habitat to catch spawning adults, and they are using electrofishing gear in river mouths to gather mature fish.
Anglers and boaters working those waters are asked to keep an eye out for the flags and buoys that mark the nets. People wading or boating near river mouths where shocking crews are working should be careful and leave the water if staff tell them to.
Eggs taken from the fish will be fertilized and then raised from egg to fry at Wolf Lake State Fish Hatchery, a Van Buren County facility. The plan is to grow those young fish into hatchery parent stock, giving the DNR, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service and other partners a supply of whitefish raised under controlled conditions.
Some of the fish will also go back into the wild, into Lake Michigan itself, into drowned river mouth lakes and possibly into inland lakes. The goal is to keep distinct family lines alive until conditions in the lake improve enough for naturally spawned fish to do better.
Whitefish numbers in lakes Michigan and Huron have dropped as pollution, lost habitat and invasive species reshaped the food web. The DNR singles out quagga mussels, which strip plankton from the water that newly hatched whitefish need to eat and leave the water clearer, both of which hurt survival.
Money for the effort comes from two places: the Great Lakes Fishery Trust, and $350,000 in general fund dollars that the Michigan Legislature set aside for the 2027 fiscal year.
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