TALKIN' - University of Wisconsin - Green Bay

Fish factory
Student discovers hidden, vibrant resource in city’s shadow
Most Wisconsinites know
Wequiock Creek, if they know
it at all, as the little stream that
falls over a 30-foot ledge just
north of campus.
Some summers the falls dries
to a trickle, but the roadside
park remains a pleasant stop
along Highway 57, the busy
four-lane to Door County.
UW-Green Bay environmental
science student David
Lawrence knows the creek’s
entirety. He’s especially familiar
with the stretch downstream
where it slows, deepens
and feeds the bay of Green Bay
and the ecologically valuable
Point au Sauble wetlands.
That’s where, in May 2010,
Lawrence began setting minnow
traps to document the
little estuary’s fish populations,
if any. What he found —
by the dozens, hundreds and,
ultimately, thousands — were
juvenile yellow perch.
8 May 2011
His research seems to establish
that the overlooked lower
creek, below the falls and rapids
of the Niagara Escarpment,
has its own claim to fame as a
nursery for Green Bay’s most
popular fish.
“I obviously had some idea of
what I might find, given the
typical species on the bay and
its tributaries,” Lawrence says.
“I didn’t expect to see the high
number of species, and especially
the number of yellow
perch throughout the year.”
Over a half dozen trips Lawrence
trapped and released
precisely 13,848 fish representing
23 species. Fingerling
yellow perch were 87 percent
of his catch. The remainder
were small white suckers, round
gobies and an assortment of
minnow species, shiners, bullheads
and tiny panfish.
Lawrence’s adviser, UW-Green
Bay Prof. Robert Howe, says
the study is likely the first
comprehensive, ongoing survey
of its kind.
“In the 1990s a UW-Madison
grad student included that site
as a sampling station, but it was
just one of many for that project,”
Howe says. “I
think a DNR field
crew has also been
in there, once.”
L a w r e n c e
returned this year
to begin sampling
again to determine
whether perch and
trophy northern
are spawning. It’s
possible the fry
hatch elsewhere and then seek
the marsh for protection.
Either way, it’s a favorable
setup. Springs near the mouth
guarantee stream flow. There’s
no public road access, and the
bay side isn’t any easier. Sandbars
and a cove inches deep
keep boaters, as well as preda-
“I don’t believe
anyone had ever
targeted that area
for ongoing, specific
analysis.”
— Faculty adviser
tor fish such as walleyes, at a
distance.
The significance of the little
marsh as a biomass producer?
Biologists and ecologists have
long known nearly all of Green
Bay’s Friday
night family
perch fries get
their start on
the relatively
extensive wetlands
of the west
shore.
On the rocky
and windswept
east shore, however
— where
the only other small wetlands,
at Little Sturgeon and Sturgeon
Bay, are developed and
degraded — Lawrence’s discovery
illustrates the potential.
“Dave’s project is a great example
of student research,” Howe
says, “and it’s getting more
interesting all the time.”