Stuart Carlton 0:00
Hey everybody. This is Stuart. You may have noticed that our release schedule is a little bit has been a little bit scurry for the last few months. That is true. Some of that is because we had a bunch of weirdly timed Live episodes. Some of that is because we're having some issues in Sea Grant not related to teaching about the great lakes that are sucking up a lot of time, and so there's just a little bit less time for podcasting right now. But we're not going anywhere. We've got a lot of episodes planned for the summer, and I think, I think we're gonna start getting back on our regular first and third of every month episode, first and third Monday of every month episode, probably starting at the third Monday of July, or, if not, starting with the first Monday of August, and then we've got a great summer and a great fall plan, and full speed ahead, it's just been a challenging couple of months for reasons not related to the podcast. But don't worry, podcast isn't going anywhere. In fact, the more challenging things get at work, frankly, the more we need the podcast to give us something fun to do. So we will get there, but we appreciate your patience. Don't stress, we're not going anywhere. And and of course, keep grading those lakes. With that, we're going to present an encore presentation of a conversation that Carolyn and I had with Francie Cuthbert back in September of 2021 we've got sort of plovers on the mind this time of year. And so we this was a kind of a fun chat. We had Francie called in from a boat, actually, not not like out of the water, but like a shuttle, a ferry, excuse me, she was on a ferry, and she called in to talk about plover biology and things like that, as part of way, this Little Plover explosion, when I first learned about Monty and Rose, frankly, is when it happened. And so this was a good conversation. We enjoyed having it. And since it's plover time of year, or plover time of year is approaching, we thought it'd be a great thing to re air. So thank you everybody. We're coming back soon. Don't worry, and enjoy this encore presentation.

Carolyn Foley 1:55
Hello. We have a random popper.

Stuart Carlton 1:58
Teach me about the Great Lakes. Teach me about the Great Lakes. Welcome back to teach me about the Great Lakes, a twice monthly podcast in which I A Great Lakes novice, ask people who are smarter and harder working than I am to teach me all about the Great Lakes. My name is Stuart Carlton, and I work with Illinois, Indiana, Sea Grant, and I am so happy to be here. We are joined today by our Canada correspondent, Carolyn Foley Carolyn, how's it

Carolyn Foley 2:22
going? Carolyn's doing? Well, it's possible that she will lose her status as Canada correspondent because she hasn't lived in Canada for a very long time. But that's okay.

Stuart Carlton 2:31
Well, that's fine. Then I'm joined today by our plover correspondent, Carolyn Foley Carolyn, what is it? Not much. Stuart, how you doing? I'm doing great. Thanks. We are here to talk plovers again, because you can never talk enough plover. So that's good, but before we do, we got a little bit of business to take care of. So let's take care of some business. The first item of business is this, it's time to go nominate someone for the lake. Is right? You remember the lake is are possibly not the least prestigious, Great Lakes based podcast award ceremony that there is, and that's going to be an award show we do at the end of the year, but we need your nominations, and so we're just reminding you to go to bitly.com/lake East 21 bitly.com/lake East 21 or look in your show notes for the link and nominate some stuff for the lakes in such categories as Great Lakes Science of the year, Great Lakes Science Communication of the year, sandwich of the year, Donut of the year, Great Lakes news story of the year. All kind of fun awards that you can nominate for. So do that. And Carolyn, you're actually going to feature a nominee for Great Lakes Outreach Program of the Year, if I recall?

Carolyn Foley 3:36
Sure, yep. So because today's guest is from the University of Minnesota. We are going to be featuring one of the nominees that is also based out of the University of Minnesota. It's the Sea Grant Great Lakes aquaculture collaborative, sometimes called black. And so it's, it's based, it's headed by the group from Minnesota Sea Grant, but it has Sea Grant extension, educators, science communicators, fishery biologists, economists and aquaculture specialists from all of the Great Lakes states, Minnesota, Michigan, Wisconsin, Illinois, Indiana, Ohio, Pennsylvania and New York, and they are trying to support an environmentally responsible, science based, competitive and sustainable aquaculture industry in the Great Lakes region. So sometimes people ask like, why is our Great Lakes sea grant programs involved in this? And it's, you know, it's aquaculture is a way to have production of food locally and things like that. There's a huge deficit with the amount of aquaculture that is imported from aquaculture grown fish or plants or invertebrates like shrimp or things like that that are grown in other countries and then brought here to be consumed. So it's good to explore the possibility, partially because aquaculture in the Great Lakes is very, very different than aquaculture along the coast, right? So. It's nice to have this collaborative that is working together to try to figure out what works in the Great Lakes. So they have a bunch of different outreach available. Some information, if you know, people want to start a particular business. There's marketing information, how to set things up, how to produce particular species. There's a whole bunch of good stuff. So yeah, no, it

Stuart Carlton 5:22
is really interesting. And I am sort of point of information that I am sort of affiliated with the I've done work with them, with the aquaculture collaborative. And yeah, aquaculture to Great Lakes. It's usually in tanks or in ponds, right? It's not like these huge net pins that are polluting out in the Gulf or the lakes or whatever. And so people are confused about that, and it's a really interesting group of people who interesting group of people who are really committed to trying to make a sustainable local seafood industry. I think so. Yeah, it is fascinating. It's good, but will it win a Lakey? Tune in probably December to find out. January. Who knows? Tune in to find out, as soon as we tell you that it's coming Great. Well, I'm excited about today's interview. We're going to talk a little bit more clovers. Nope, not clovers. We'll talk plovers with Dr Francie Cuthbert who is a plover biologist, among any other things. And the reason that I point out that she's a plover biologist is so that I can introduce her with this you. A

Unknown Speaker 6:27
researcher feature, a feature in which your research, you're gonna teach us about the great place.

Stuart Carlton 6:39
We're joined today by Dr Franci Cuthbert. She is a distinguished teaching professor at the Department of Fisheries, wildlife and conservation biology at the University of Minnesota. Francie, how are you today? Good, very good. And Francie, you are lying right now for a ferry in Canada. Is that right? That's right. How about you? Oh, we're wonderful. I'm always glad to talk piping plovers. I didn't know that I was until the first time I spoke piping plovers, actually, just a couple hours ago. But now I know I'm always excited, because these are cool birds. So you've been working on plovers for a while. Is that correct, right? Yeah, my whole career. No kidding. And so what attracted you to the plovers, exactly? Is it just they were there, or is it important issue? Is there something about them? Well,

Dr. Francie Cuthbert 7:19
actually, for my PhD research, I studied Caspian turn behavior, ecology on islands in northern Lake Michigan. And on one of the islands where I worked, there was a pair of of piping plovers that I used to see almost every day, and I knew they were rare, I started to read up a little bit and found out that really, as far as the Great Lakes population, almost nothing was known. And so I just kind of carried this side interest. And then some opportunities came up, and I started working more intensively with with plovers. So

Carolyn Foley 8:03
the plover sort of stole you away from the turns. Yes, yes,

Stuart Carlton 8:07
they did. The plover really was an unexpected turn. Yes, okay, thank you. Good night. When you first started that was kind of probably close to the peak of their endangerment, or when they were really starting to become endangered, right? What? What did you learn about plovers, kind of earlier career that in terms of why they're endangered, or what some of the stresses were for the populations?

Dr. Francie Cuthbert 8:29
Well, it, you know, it took a while to sort things out, because, you're right. I, I started my interest before they were listed as an endangered population, but early on, you know, I knew that they were rare, the numbers were low, and that they weren't changing, and that at that time, there was no management or conservation effort really in place. What we know now is that they probably were greatly affected by a public recreation. Most of the sites where they nest are state parks, national parks, township parks, all all these are beaches, city parks. And with it probably began, oh, in the around World War Two, actually the end of World War Two, but in the 50s and 60s is when the numbers appeared to have really dropped. It is important to know that they were never what you would call common or abundant in the Great Lakes. They've always been. The numbers have always been. What biologists would say are small. We're small. Is

Carolyn Foley 9:46
that largely because just their preferred habitat is not that common? Or is it that everywhere that they exist, they exist in relatively low numbers? Actually

Dr. Francie Cuthbert 9:58
the. There are two other populations, one on the East Coast that has around 2000 pairs, and one in the Great Plains and Prairie Canada that that population is at about 2000 plus pairs, and then the Great Lakes. It's not known for sure, but the estimate out there is maybe as many as 800 pairs, but I think it's really was smaller than that. And so the Great Lakes has tremendous shoreline, but the plovers are very particular about the habitat that they use, and that is not abundant, and so I would say they're limited by available habitat, and also they're sitting in between the two populations, and I think have served as a link historically. So that may also be a reason that the numbers are smaller. That's

Carolyn Foley 11:05
cool. Has anyone any done any kind of like genetic work to see if the populations are actually connected, or observations of them, like tagging them, or anything like that?

Dr. Francie Cuthbert 11:15
Yes. So there's several studies that have gone on. An earlier study looked at whether or not the three populations were genetically the same, and this was an older study, so the methods that we use now, of course, we're not available, but that study documented that The Atlantic coast and the great plains were distinctive, distinctive to the point of being able to justify that they were subspecies the Great Lakes. Birds are much more closely related to the Great Plains genetically, but they are not distinct. They're not distinct as a subspecies. So

Stuart Carlton 12:04
how did you, how did you used to do that research? I'm curious about that. So my senior thesis now, 20 years ago, Oh God, I'm getting older, I looked at two populations of fish, the silver jaw minnow. We were trying to figure out if they were different subspecies, as I was counting fish scales every night. You know, most kids are out partying. I'm counting fish scales. What did y'all what are like the older techniques to determine bird species? Was it, you know, looking kind of body morphometrics, or what kind of stuff did y'all do the

Dr. Francie Cuthbert 12:29
this study? And I was not, I was not a co author on this study, this initial one, it was done with, I think, blood samples, but also eggs. And so these would have been unhatched eggs or, you know, eggs that were not viable. Let's put it that way. But I should interject that right now, I'm just starting a genetic study with a colleague at the University of Minnesota, Sushma Reddy, and she works on population genetics, and so we're in the process of collecting a whole new set of samples to be able to look at in a more sophisticated way the relationship among birds in these three populations, as well as answer some other questions, so that you know that's important to know, and we're just starting it. So I don't have any answers, but we're using blood, fecal samples and also collecting DNA from the the cheeks of birds, as we're banning them from

Carolyn Foley 13:38
the cheek. So is that like, similar to when people are doing, like, a DNA test for their human that, you like, yeah,

Dr. Francie Cuthbert 13:44
exactly. And it's, you know, we use the the swabs that are, you know, that are the same, except they're tiny that are being used to test for for COVID,

Stuart Carlton 13:55
these adorable little COVID swabs. Oh, geez, yeah. So, so then we're in this scurry situation, right? Whereas we have the great play, or the Great Lakes population is distinct from from the other one, and so it's in danger. So my understanding from talking with Jillian Farkas and our last bit was that the Great Lakes population is endangered and the other populations are not. And during the summer, that makes sense, but over winter, they all commingled? That's Is that Is that right?

Dr. Francie Cuthbert 14:22
That's correct. And they and during the winter, all three populations are classified as threatened. Okay,

Stuart Carlton 14:30
so it's a roving classification scheme, depending on where right.

Dr. Francie Cuthbert 14:35
And you, you mentioned, I don't want to, you know, send you off in a side direction, but you mentioned whether or not we the birds, were tagged or you know what we knew about individuals and their behavior, and that's one of the unique things about the Great Lakes population, is that we have been banding individuals since about 1993 it's. And we have a tremendous database on essentially all the birds. We banned all the chicks and all of the adults, and we don't miss many. So more than 90% of adults at the end of the season are individually marked, and the chicks, we rarely Miss Miss chicks, so that gives us a lot of information. And so that's how we know where they go in the winter and whether or not birds are showing up in the other populations. So that's another way we know that the Great Lakes is distinctive.

Carolyn Foley 15:41
That's crazy. So what do you, I mean, how? How do you manage that? Like, do you have, like, a huge force of volunteers that are helping you out? Or, how does that, do you have students? Or how do you manage to be able to capture all of the chicks that are showing up.

Dr. Francie Cuthbert 16:01
Okay? So, you know, we have about, this past year, we had about 74 pairs, nesting pairs, and they lay, you know, typically about they lay four eggs. And not everybody is successful, so their failures and so on. And so I have a banding team that operates out of the University of Michigan Biological Station, and they go to most of the sites, and they band young, and before the young are available for banding, they that's when they Capture adults that are incubating. So far, we're able to keep up with all of it. At some point, hopefully the numbers will get high enough that, you know, we'll have to have a different strategy. We don't ban in Canada, there's a colleagues who do that. We don't band in New York. We have colleagues who do who do that. And same with Pennsylvania, but and we have a colleague who helps in Wisconsin, but otherwise we've got done, Illinois, Michigan, of course, Wisconsin, Green Bay Area and Ohio this year. It's a big

Stuart Carlton 17:15
job. And so my understanding is, is that we're at about 75 reading pairs right now with the Great Lakes. Is that kind of the best estimate? Our estimate was 74 this year. And so, what is, what is success then? So, so you've been working in clover restoration for quite some time, and the numbers are moving up, if not always in a steady line. What, what is there a target number? How do you first of all, is there one? And then how do you decide what that might be?

Dr. Francie Cuthbert 17:38
The the recovery goal is 150 pairs. And that's 150 pairs in the US, because, of course, we have a different policy than Canada does. And that's 100 pairs in Michigan and 50 in the other states, not. It's not specified how many per state. This has to, you know, reach that number and remain there for five years, as well as a target reproductive success, number of chicks fledged per pair at 1.5 and that's to be consistent for five years before the population can be considered for delisting. So you said, Where does that number come from? Well, the recovery plan, there have been several. One was done shortly after listing in the mid 1980s and then another one in 2003 and the this was before, really, there was much information about the population, and many of the, you know, sophisticated models that are available now. So it was, it was a target goal, and it was not one that was based on any kind of a sophisticated analysis. I guess that's the best way to say it,

Stuart Carlton 19:02
but, but they think at 150 pair and then at one and a half chicks per per breeding pair, that should lead to a stable, or maybe even slightly growing population.

Dr. Francie Cuthbert 19:12
Yes, that's, you know, that's, that's the goal. And of course, that's really the big challenge that we all worry about, because I think you know enough about plovers to know that they are very intensively managed. And so the question is, can they ever reach that target goal and then be independent, or will they be what's referred to as conservation reliant species, so that even though you hit that target, they still are going to need some help, not not at the level that they're getting now, but something to maintain them, maintain the population.

Stuart Carlton 19:55
And so right, the worry is that without like people out there, you know. Like blocking off the nests on the beaches and, you know, counting all of them and making sure that they're safe, that they could, they could just go right back to where they were, I guess, yeah,

Dr. Francie Cuthbert 20:09
yes. Or, you know, have greater ups and downs and and have certain events that could, could lead them to really drop in number.

Stuart Carlton 20:19
Oh, right, a low year combined with some sort of disastrous event. It's not very reasonable, right? Yep, yeah. So how do we get how do we get there? How do we get to 150 breeding pairs? What needs to happen in order to get to that status?

Dr. Francie Cuthbert 20:31
Ongoing management at all of the nest sites include an exclosure that goes over the nest, which is like a wire cage with openings big enough for the adults to go through and sit on the nest. But most mammalian ground predators cannot get through there because the holes are smaller and then covering on the top to keep out aerial predators, crows, gulls, Merlin's a small Falcon, great horned owl, for example. And the other thing is, we close off areas, and that's done with what we call psychological fencing. It's not, you know, it's, it's literally posts typically metal posts with signs that say, Do not enter. Please, don't, you know, go in to this nesting site. And then there's twine that's around the these posts. And so this is where we estimate the size of the territory is and will be, but that can be moved if they happen to move their chicks, and we need to make a bigger area, but that's good for the eggs the exposure, but as soon as they hatch within, can be just a few hours, the adults lead the chicks out of that fenced in the exposure, and then they're in the big outside world, which can be very unpredictable and sometimes quite cruel,

Stuart Carlton 22:10
so to speak. Yes it can, yes it can. So that's,

Dr. Francie Cuthbert 22:14
you know, that's the basic thing that we do. But we also have monitors associated with all of the nesting sites, and in most cases, these monitors are checking every single day. And some are literally just like staying right there at the nest site. And they're, you know, watching to make sure that they're not bothered, you know, disturbed by humans. They're not people with dogs off leash, that there are not issues going on, that they can they can help correct or prevent. And two of our urban, big urban sites in the US, outside of Toledo, at Mommy Bay and in at Montrose beach in Chicago, they have, you know, citizen scientists and citizen volunteers that are very vigilant and that are there, you know, basically dawn to dusk. And this has made, you know, I think that's, I don't think I know that's why those nests have been successful, because they they are watching all the time for threats. These are and of course, there are a lot of other types of management. We've done some habitat restoration that that's attracted birds. We have some the public beaches, there are law enforcement that that are involved, that can help with different issues. You know, all these are are really important factors. And another one that's building more and more is increasing public support. The public is learning about piping plovers, and you are helping that, you know, to happen with this podcast, but it really came in a big way with the two, with the Chicago nest, yes,

Stuart Carlton 24:13
with Monte and Rose. So I just realized why they named that if they're at the Montrose Beach, right?

Dr. Francie Cuthbert 24:18
Yeah, yeah. And and then, and then Ohio, there were tremendous number of stories that have come out, you know, on the radio and in the news, newspapers and just articles that people have written in in magazines and and so all of this gets the public involved and interested.

Carolyn Foley 24:42
I wanted to ask a slightly different question, because you're talking about the public, and really the public helping with conservation and stuff like that, but I see that you have also worked on biology and management of double crested cormorants, and so I wanted to ask a little bit about that, because. Is in, you know, when I grew up near Lake Erie, and there was a lot of, you know, the the cormorants are the population numbers are too high. The population numbers are too low. They're eating, and there's been a lot of concern about them, you know, eating Round Goby. So I come from an invertebrate background, but more invertebrates feeding fish. And so I thought a lot about round gobies and contaminants, and if they're what's available, and then the cormorants eat them, then there can be problems. So can you talk a little bit about, you know, like, can we contrast a little bit the public support for the piping plovers, which I learned about, you know, versus the way the public has engaged with, what happens with cormorants at all? I know that's a whole other thing, but maybe we could just talk about it briefly. Actually,

Dr. Francie Cuthbert 25:51
it may be a whole different thing, but it's a very interesting comparison to look at the two and how the public has responded. How agencies have responded? You know, it's a it's a huge challenge. You've outlined what the issue is. It's, it's basically over consumption of fish that that that's what they are perceived to do, so that they're competing, competing with anglers. The other is destruction of vegetation. People don't like to see the fact that, you know, they kill trees and and and islands and so on. Can change from being a treed Island to one that's that's barren. The pressure that was put on government agencies was overwhelming. There were many biologists across the Great Lakes region who that's all they did was deal with cormorant issues. Government agencies are in a position to make the public happy and try and figure out how to do that and how to manage a resource. Well, the cormorant, you know, was a was a challenge, and plovers are also a challenge, but in a different way. And if you look at the two species, piping, plovers are small. They're cute, they're not abundant, and the public has a general sense of too many. When they're too many of anything. It can be, you know, too many black flies. It can be too many cormorants. It can be too many ale lives. You know, once a certain level is reached, the public says, no, too much. We don't we don't want that. We don't want that number anymore. And that's when pressure gets put on the agencies. Cormorants are not considered cute. I think they're fascinating, you know, biologically and just their their whole morphology, but that doesn't come across to the public. And so this is, you know, another reason there's not been support for cormorants, or many people have been supporting them. So that's

Stuart Carlton 28:14
interesting. One of the things, so I remember reading a paper, oh, this was a while ago, because I was still in grad school. It's probably, probably 1015, years, five or 10 years ago at this point, looking at media. So one of the things I do is I analyze media coverage of environmental controversies. And so there's a paper I wasn't a part of, and the title of the paper, I still remember this was from victim to perpetrator, and it was talked about news coverage of cormorants and how, over time, you know, corners first perceived as, like, you know, victims at first, like in the 19, what, 70s, or whatever, maybe early 80s. And then over time, the coverage of them slowly moved, and there was a lot more use of sort of that perpetrator framing, or the risks from corporate or corporate framing. And so that's just the story you're telling there. Yeah,

Dr. Francie Cuthbert 28:56
yeah, no, that's, that's exactly right. And they were actually on endangered lists in several places. They were on the Wisconsin endangered species list, if you can believe that. And and they actually Wisconsin put up like nesting towers, artificial nest sites to try and attract them. I can't tell you the exact year, but I think that could have been, could have been in the early 70s. Well,

Stuart Carlton 29:27
hopefully one day we'll be having this conversation about piping clovers. They're unlikely to be perpetrators, but maybe they'll be so plentiful that people are not worried about them anymore. Well, Dr Francie Cuthbert, this is really interesting, but this is actually not why we invited you on teach me about the Great Lakes this week. The reason that we invited you on teach me about the Great Lakes is to ask you two questions. And the first one is this, if you could choose to have a great donut for breakfast or a great sandwich for lunch, which one would you choose?

Dr. Francie Cuthbert 29:55
Oh, a great sandwich for lunch. So if so now you're at the University

Stuart Carlton 29:59
of. Minnesota is that in Duluth, where's the University of Minnesota? It's

Dr. Francie Cuthbert 30:03
in, no, that's, well, the University of Minnesota system has campuses a number of places. I'm on the Twin Cities campus. So that's Minneapolis, St Paul.

Stuart Carlton 30:12
Okay, perfect. Duluth is where Minnesota Sea Grant is based out of. That's what it is. Okay, Minneapolis, good. Going to be a broader selection there. So when I go to Minneapolis and I want to get a really great sandwich for lunch. Where should I go? Well,

Dr. Francie Cuthbert 30:23
I would say one place is to go to broders Deli, which is at 50th and Penn. And they have, they have a great choice of sandwiches. That's, that's my first choice.

Stuart Carlton 30:40
There we go. I'm going and we'll put a link to that in our show notes, which you listener can find it teach me about the Great lakes.com/ 44 zero, because this is episode 40, and the second question is this, so we spend a lot of time talking to people about the Great Lakes and what a wonderful place they are. But, but what is special about the Great Lakes to you, is there like a special place or a special memory about the Great Lakes that you'd like to share with our audience?

Dr. Francie Cuthbert 31:05
Well, I can say that I have spent a very long time, you know, throughout my career and childhood and so on in the Great Lakes region. And I would say, you know, the islands of Northern Lake Michigan are totally amazing. And the My Favorite Island is High Island, which is where I first saw plovers. But it's uninhabited. It's got spectacular high dunes. According to botanists, it has some of the most original kind of pristine vegetation and and coastal shore ecosystem features of of anywhere in the Great Lakes.

Stuart Carlton 31:54
Oh, that sounds wonderful. Well, Dr Francie Cuthbert, a distinguished teaching professor at the Department of Fisheries, wildlife and conservation biology at the University of Minnesota, where can people go to find out more about your work or about the piping plover? Is there a website or social media? What works?

Dr. Francie Cuthbert 32:09
Um, yes, so we, we have a blog site and we have a Facebook page that has they're both full of lots of info information. The Facebook is like an update of what's going on during the winter during the summer. The blog site has a lot of information on how we choose band combos and how to recognize and report them. Some more, you know, factual information. So the great the easiest way to find these is GLP, IPL, either Facebook or blog, and I can send you those I can send you those links.

Stuart Carlton 32:49
GLP, IPL, fantastic. And we will put that in our show notes so that you can go straight there and with that doctor, Francie Guthrie, thank you so much for coming on and teaching us all about the Great Lakes.

Dr. Francie Cuthbert 33:06
Well, thanks. Thanks for your support for plovers and sharing information with the public. You

Stuart Carlton 33:29
It's always fun to talk plovers. Always fun to talk plovers.

Carolyn Foley 33:32
Yeah, I mean, um, being perfectly honest, I'm not a birder, and I like plovers because they're cute. They're

Stuart Carlton 33:40
cute our last episode, which was also plovers. So you don't know this because we just recorded it a couple minutes ago, and it was just me, but the title is cotton balls with toothpick legs, and that is basically what they are, especially when they're young, right? And

Carolyn Foley 33:56
now I'm thinking, like, if you had a title about what a cormorant is. It would not be cotton balls with two

Stuart Carlton 34:04
No, it would not be. There's actually a highly offensive name for them in the South. I won't, I won't. I mean, it's like, it offends me, and I'm pretty hard to offend. But yes, yes, people are not fans of cormorants. But it's interesting because it did. I forgot about that paper that I read. I actually were probably not supposed to say this, but I might have reviewed it for publication, and so that's part of why it stuck in my mind. But it was a good paper, right?

Carolyn Foley 34:27
Yeah, and, and, I mean, like, I lived through that, because when I started my career, it was like, oh, you know, cormorants are in trouble. We need to look after them. And then I would literally, like, we would drive a boat by middle sister Island, and and it was just covered, like all the trees were gone. So they,

Stuart Carlton 34:44
what? What do they do to the trees? Is it they they don't eat them. What is it? They poop? They go to

Carolyn Foley 34:48
the bathroom? Yes, it was completely covered. And then, you know, like, we'd be out in the middle, and there's like, these islands in the middle of Western Lake Erie, and there's like a house, and then they just have a random, like, gun. Shot, like, and it's not an actual gunshot, it's just a loud noise to scare the cormorants away. But we're just sampling, you know, like, gathering whatever, and then all of a sudden you hear boom, and you're like, oh my gosh, what's happening? So, yeah,

Stuart Carlton 35:11
yeah. Well, you're assuming it was an actual gunshot. It

Carolyn Foley 35:15
was too regular, but, yeah, no, but, I mean, yeah. Anyway, this, this is not an episode about Carolyn's weird adventures sampling Lake Erie. So

Stuart Carlton 35:21
no, however, I'm writing this down, so you need to find your old sampling buddies, right? Because there's no relationship like field work relationship, for better and worse. And one day we will have the episode about Carolyn's adventures sampling Lake Erie. Yeah,

Carolyn Foley 35:36
I don't know. Yeah. Okay, sounds good. Well,

Stuart Carlton 35:42
maybe we'll get out the voice disguising technology then and have it just we'll invite a random stranger.

Carolyn Foley 35:49
Yeah, yeah, special guest biologist, yep. No, that

Stuart Carlton 35:52
was interesting. Corporate stuff was interesting, and I had not, yeah, I hadn't thought about this stuff in forever. Plus team sandwich girls buy one more? All in all, a successful interview. Plus, she was on a boat. We always like to interview people on a boat. Should have asked about the the horn. I don't think it would have gone the same, though. No, probably not. Yeah, great. Um, good. Well, in this highly organized fashion, um, Carolyn, would you like to read the credits while I play the music under the credits. Can you find the link? Sure, yeah, no, no. So behind the scenes here, if this stays in Quinn, it's your call. Uh, Francie was supposed to appear on last episode, but, but because she's traveling and in Canada, she was unreachable, because I don't know if they don't have cell phones yet in Canada or whatever the deal is. Oh, be quiet, but she couldn't make it. But then she texted me. Said, Hey, I'm, you know, sorry, but I'm free now. Do you want to talk clovers? And the answer is yes, I always want to talk plovers. So we're having this emergency episode a little bit less organized than usual, but that's okay. It's an impressive level of lack of organization. And so as I fill the time, Carolyn is slowly opening up the thing. Are you ready? I got it good to go do it starting now.

Carolyn Foley 37:04
Teach me about the Great Lakes is brought to you by the fine people at Illinois, Indiana, Sea Grant. I encourage you to check out the great work we do. At I, I S, E, A, G, R, A, N t.org, and at i L, I N Sea Grant on Facebook, Twitter and other social media teach me about the Great Lakes. Is produced by hope charters, Carolyn Foley, Megan Gunn and reading miles. Ethan Chitty is our associate producer and fixer. Our super fun podcast at work is by Joel Davenport. The show is edited by the awesome Quinn rose, and I encourage you to check her out@inspiringrobot.com here, you have a question or comment about the show, please email it to teach me about the Great lakes@gmail.com or leave a message on our hotline at 765496, I, I S, g4, 4744474, You can also follow the show at Twitter, at Teach Great Lakes, thanks for listening and keep grading those links.

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