Managing Fish, Wildlife, and Plants

The Goal

Maintain resilient and diverse communities of fish, wildlife, and plants in the Lake Champlain Basin.

// In This Section //

• Introduction
• Threats
• Progress
• Fish, Wildlife, and Plants Management Objectives, Priority Actions, and Tasks
• Citations

Introduction

The Lake Champlain Basin is a large freshwater ecosystem with a rich diversity and abundance of native fish, wildlife, and plants. These living natural resources occupy a mosaic of interconnected aquatic and terrestrial habitats, including broad open waters, tributaries, wetlands, forests, agricultural lands, and other areas. The natural resources of this ecosystem provide tremendous social, recreational, economic, and environmental benefits to the Lake Champlain Basin.

Fish, wildlife, and plants throughout the Basin are intrinsically linked in a food web, from microscopic plankton to fish, birds, other wildlife, and plants. Phytoplankton and zooplankton are at the base of the food web and are linked to keystone predators such as game fish and birds of prey through a complex relationship of intermediary predator and prey species. The structure, function, and balance of the food web are closely connected to water quality, habitat diversity, and human health. Lakes, ponds, and streams provide habitat for many different species of fish, invertebrates, amphibians, and reptiles, some of which are threatened or endangered. Wetland areas provide critical habitat for fish and wildlife while also improving water quality by serving as sinks for nutrients that would be delivered to the Lake through the tributary network. Wetlands also help control flooding, protect groundwater and drinking water supplies, reduce erosion, and protect shorelines. Rivers and streams draining upland portions of the Basin complete the network, linking upland terrestrial and aquatic habitats to floodplains and associated wetlands and, ultimately, Lake Champlain itself. The abundance of fish, wildlife, and plant communities within the Basin attract a wide array of recreational users, including hunters, anglers, trappers, paddlers, hikers, and bird watchers, providing a significant economic benefit to the regional economy. Natural species diversity is a highly valued part of the region’s natural heritage and a critical component of the ecosystem that we all share.

The native flora and fauna of the Lake Champlain Basin have changed significantly during the last few centuries, both in diversity and abundance. New species have been introduced to the ecosystem, others have been lost, and some are more dominant now than historically. Some species, such as original strains of lake trout, will not likely return to Lake Champlain in their native form. Losses of native keystone species like the lake trout, Atlantic salmon, and American eels have a significant detrimental impact on the ecosystem, changing the natural balance of the Lake Champlain food web. Management agencies throughout the Lake Champlain Basin are working to restore many of these species to self-sustaining populations.

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Threats

The Lake Champlain Basin provides a rich and varied habitat for aquatic and terrestrial species and boasts healthy natural communities. These natural communities face many threats, including loss of wetland and riparian habitat functionality, overexploitation of highly valued species (e.g., lake trout, Atlantic salmon), and introduction of new species to the ecosystem (e.g., alewife). Changes to any component of the ecosystem can have substantial impacts on the rest of the ecosystem. Loss of wetlands to agricultural, residential, or commercial development has far reaching impacts including loss of critical wildlife habitat, reduced flood storage, and reduced pollutant filtering. Dams and improper culvert placement can reduce fish habitat by interrupting passage from one stream segment to another. Poorly planned land development also can lead to reduced habitat connectivity, increased erosion and sedimentation, stream bank instability, and increased nutrient and sediment loadings in rivers resulting in further degradation and loss of aquatic habitats.

Invasive species, both plant and animal, can change the balance of the natural ecosystem. Invasive plant species such as water chestnut may outcompete and displace native species. This, in turn, can disrupt the food web that waterfowl and other wildlife rely on. Invasive animal species also have the potential to impact the food web. Alewife, for example, can become a primary food source for native Lake Champlain salmonids, but a diet featuring alewife has been shown to inhibit the natural reproduction of native Lake Champlain salmonids and also may alter the zooplankton community, which could affect the entire food web within the Lake.

Unmanaged native species also have the potential to impact the balance of the ecosystem. Uncontrolled cormorant populations result in loss of nesting habitat for other bird species, including heron and tern. An unmanaged sea lamprey population would result in increased wounding rates on salmonids and ultimately a decline in their populations in the Lake, subsequently impacting other critical components of the food web. Efforts to restore the Lake Champlain fishery rely heavily on the success of the sea lamprey management program.

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Progress

Much work is being done through the collaborative efforts of many partners, from federal and state agencies to local volunteer and nonprofit groups and private sector entities, to protect the fish, wildlife, and plant resources of the Basin. Local implementation grants administered through the Lake Champlain Basin Program (LCBP) have funded local watershed groups to implement projects to stabilize eroding stream banks, establish stream bank plantings, and manage invasive plant species. The Nature Conservancy continues to partner with the LCBP, the states of New York and Vermont, and the US Fish and Wildlife Service (USFWS) to identify valuable wetlands and to identify funding sources to permanently protect these areas. Similar efforts have been undertaken by Basin partners in Québec. Conservation cost-share programs target agricultural lands to help create conservation easements, set aside wetlands, and establish vegetated buffers along streams. Aggressive long-term management of water chestnut in South Lake Champlain has made great strides in pushing its range southward and helping to reestablish a balanced community structure in some areas.

The Lake Champlain Fish and Wildlife Management Cooperative regularly monitors populations of landlocked Atlantic salmon, lake trout, brown trout, walleye, and northern pike, as well as aquatic organism passageways to evaluate fish movement and the success of stocking programs. The goal of the Cooperative is to restore and maintain salmonid and other fish communities through natural reproduction, supplemented by stocking when necessary. The salmonid fishery has not been developing as well as expected in large part due to sea lamprey parasitism. However, a comprehensive long-term sea lamprey control program has recently begun to show some signs of success. Although wounding rates for both lake trout and landlocked Atlantic salmon remain above target values, there is some indication of a downward trend approaching the targets set by the Cooperative (Fisheries Technical Committee 2009).

Progress has been made in providing passage upstream for spawning and corridors for habitat. Stream crossing structures in two New York watersheds have been assessed and inventoried. Three dams have been removed in Vermont in the last four years and thirteen aquatic organism passage barriers will be removed in New York and Vermont in the next year.

Biodiversity is also changing within the Basin. Seventeen additional species of breeding birds have been discovered in Vermont since 1981 – including bald eagles, great egrets, and sandhill cranes – as documented in the Vermont Breeding Bird Atlas. Breeding bald eagle populations are increasing in the Lake Champlain region. A record number of bald eagles were observed in a January 2008 survey on the New York side, although a similar survey in 2009 yielded a record low (winter aerial surveys have been conducted since 2006; Nye 2009). Several other species, such as the pink heel splitter (a native mussel), common tern, lake sturgeon, and spiny softshell turtle, are listed as rare, threatened, or endangered and are under state or federal protection. Many state, provincial, and federal programs offer financial and technical assistance to private landowners to improve wildlife habitat and stabilize stream banks for protection of these species. Active cormorant management programs have helped reduce competition and restore nesting habitat, resulting in an increase in native nesting colonial birds.

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Fish, Wildlife, and Plants Management Objectives, Priority Actions, and Tasks

Considerable efforts are underway to protect the fish, wildlife, and plant resources of the Basin. However, increasing pressures continue to threaten the Basin ecosystem through habitat loss or fragmentation, as well as degradation. A continual collaborative effort among all of the LCBP partners is necessary to successfully address these threats and to restore and maintain the rich diversity of native fish, wildlife, and plant communities that we currently enjoy in the Lake Champlain Basin. Many examples of coordination among these agencies to enhance application of an ecosystem approach to management and conservation in the Lake Champlain Basin could be cited. This chapter sets broad conservation objectives and describes natural resource agencies work to protect and enhance fish, wildlife, plants, and their habitats. The priority actions and tasks below highlight the efforts of LCBP partners to protect, restore, and maintain the aquatic flora and fauna of the Lake Champlain Basin, with a special emphasis on biota within the lake.

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Citations

Fisheries Technical Committee, 2009. Strategic Plan for Lake Champlain Fisheries. Lake Champlain Fish and Wildlife Management Cooperative, USFWS, Essex Junction, VT

Nye, P. 2009. New York State Bald Eagle Report 2009. New York State Dept. of Environmental Conservation, Albany, NY.

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