﻿ Floating lab monitors Great Lakes - National Fisherman
National Fisherman

The Great Lakes Fishery Commission estimates that more than 40 million people in the US and Canada depend on the Great Lakes for food, drinking water and recreation. A state-of-the-art research vessel the "Muskie" is currently making its way through Lake Erie collecting data samples for the US Geological Survey.

The 70-foot long vessel isn't your average boat. It's rigged with advanced sonar and noise reduction technology and high-end microscopes for testing fish samples. Director of the USGS Great Lakes Science Center Russell Strach says the boat has everything you'd find in a lab and more.

"It also has hydroacoustic capability that's a technique where you can essentially penetrate sound into the water and get an image of the fish or schools of fish, we can actually identify to species based on those sound waves and determine general abundance and density," said Strach.


"The scientific data that we're gathering is mostly used to ensure that these species are around for many generations to come. It's for the sustainability. It's so that the states and the province can set harvest restrictions at the right levels, so that commercial fishing remains robust and sport fishing remains healthy," said Strach.

Read the full story at WBFO>>

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