Wisconsin DNR at the WATER Institute

Wisconsin DNR Law Enforcement Unit:

The Great Lakes WATER Institute is used extensively by the Law Enforcement Division of WDNR. Lake Michigan law enforcement activities are often staged and coordinated from this facility. The Unit moors two Lake Michigan patrol boats at the facility, enabling a quick response to emergency calls or violations in progress.

The Law Enforcement Unit also uses the WATER Institute for maintenance and storage of the Unit's gear. There is a locked storage area which is used to store evidence that is collected from arrests made on the Lake. Maintenance of equipment is accomplished with the help of a dry work space that is shared with WDNR fisheries managers.

The Wisconsin DNR, together with the WATER Institute, has developed a Marine Operations Facilities initiative and plans which include boat storage facilities and a boat launch ramp that would greatly increase accessibility to the harbor and Lake by small Law Enforcement vessels.

Wisconsin DNR Southern Lake Michigan Fisheries Management Work Unit:

The Wisconsin Department of Natural Resources Southern Lake Michigan Fisheries Work Unit, housed at the WATER Institute, is responsible for the management of the fish populations as well as both the sport and commercial fisheries in the southern Wisconsin waters of Lake Michigan and tributary rivers.

Activities include long-term population monitoring, tracking the lake-wide charter fishing reports, monitoring the catch at fishing tournaments and conducting creel surveys in order to monitor the sport harvest of Lake Michigan fish. The commercial fishery is monitored through random dockside and on-board visits with active commercial fishers who fish for yellow perch, bloater chubs, and lake whitefish.

The Work Unit participates in a series of assessments in order to compile a long-term data base on lake trout abundance in the area of Lake Michigan off Milwaukee. This data collection effort is part of a cooperative program aimed at lake trout restoration, and involving all four states and the federal government, coordinated under the Great Lakes Fishery Commission. A series of assessments designed to track the abundance of all life stages of yellow perch is also conducted by the Work Unit. Data collected under this project have been used to make management recommendations affecting sport bag limits and commercial quotas for this species.

One of the major projects on tributary streams is the use of the newly constructed Root River Steelhead Facility as a sampling tool to assess spawning runs of steelhead, brown trout, coho and chinook salmon. In conjunction with this project, Work Unit staff routinely cooperate with state operations and hatchery personnel in gamete and feral broodstock collection in support of the trout and salmon stocking program.

Fishery information is frequently shared with scientists working at the WATER Institute. Past cooperative projects have examined yellow perch reproductive success and chinook salmon sterilization. There is currently an exchange of information and ideas between the Work Unit and other WATER Institute scientists under the auspices of the Great Lakes Fishery Commission's Yellow Perch Task Group. This group exists as a part of an effort to promote cooperation between all of the Lake Michigan Management agencies in the management of this economically important species.

Most recently, UWM and the WDNR have established a joint Great Lakes Fisheries Biologist position at the WATER Institute, the first of its kind in the state. Together the WATER Institute and DNR are developing a new interagency cooperative partnership that will lead to even closer ties between research, resource management and education, and serve as a model for future cooperative ventures, positions and activites between the University and public agencies.

Visit the Wisconsin DNR at http://www.dnr.state.wi.us/