wisconsin spring hearing tonight!!!!!!!!!!!!!!7pm southwest highschool brown county
Title: Protect the Northern Pike of Green Bay The Problem: The northern pike that preside in the bay of Green Bay are fighting an uphill battle that they will eventually lose if we the people of Wisconsin and the WDNR don’t act now! With 70% of the historic wetlands along the west shore of the bay already lost, the WDNR has mounted a rather successful campaign to save the wetlands we have left. With hundreds of thousands of dollars or even millions spent on purchasing land, creating spawning grounds, and recreating buffers along small streams one would think the pike population would explode. Yet the WDNR states, “The scarcity of top predator species such as northern pike has been recognized as a significant problem in the waters of the bay.” The pikes main ecological role in the bay is to control other species such as exotics that compete with game fish and perch. The WDNR own studies displayed white perch stomachs contained up to 35 yellow perch young, nothing compared to alewife stomachs that contained 258 yellow perch young. The bay of Green Bay is “sick”. Yellow perch numbers are nothing like the 1980’s. Pike numbers and quality are even worse. Some but not all of the pike decline can be attributed to low water levels during the spring spawn. Low water levels are not an excuse for pike decline but just another reason pike need more protection!
Be it resolved, that the WDNR protects pike by decreasing the bag limit and/or creating a slot to protect bigger females.