The Trent Severn Waterway is a manmade canal waterway that connects Lake Ontario with Georgian Bay in Lake Huron, spanning 387 km in length. Beginning construction in 1833, and finishing in 1920, it is made up of canals, locks and lift locks [1]. While the original use was for logging and transport in industry, the waterway is now used for recreational boating with visitors from all around the world and is managed by Parks Canada [2][3]. One of the 2 lift locks in use is the Kirkfield lift lock (lock 36), operating each year from mid-May to mid-October [4]. It lifts boats 15 m either up or down to connect the upper and lower section of the Talbot River, connecting Canal Lake in the west to Mitchell Lake in the east [5][6]. The waterway, and …show more content…
the Kirkfield lift lock area, are habitats for local fish and aquatic life such as the lake sturgeon, river redhorse, american eel, and channel darter [7]. These populations, and others, have seen declining numbers for decades throughout the waterway including areas around locks [8][9][10][11].
This leads to a decrease in local biodiversity throughout the waterway and Great Lakes, causing instability in their environments that leads to further population decline for these species and others [12]. The causes for this decline vary depending on species but often include overfishing, threat from invasive species, and, of special concern in the Trent Severn Waterway, habitat fragmentation [8][9][10][11][12]. Examples of habitat fragmentation are dams and lift locks that break up natural aquatic areas and interfere with natural flow of individuals in areas that were previously one continuous habitat [13]. This occurs annually at the Kirkfield lift lock where aquatic life can go up or down the lock between mid-May and mid-October while the lock is operational, but are stuck between mid-October and mid-May [2]. While fish do go dormant in the winter, the american eel, channel darter, and lake sturgeon are active from 5°C to 25°C and do not go dormant until early December and reactivate in early May [14][15][16][17]. Thus, the Kirkfield lift lock limits these species’ habitat ranges for several weeks per year, which causes population decline
[18]. The problem then, is to allow for fish to get from the top of the lift lock to the bottom, year round, being a problem in water systems affecting the natural environment.
On Monday 5th of July we went and conducted a survey of the river Alyn
The St. Lawrence Seaway Management Corporation. "the seaway." Seaway System. N.p., n.d. Web. 22 May 2014.
When I started to reading this book, I do not imagine what it was about .I am an international student, and I have been living in the U.S for a short time , so many of the issues regarding of American history are new for me. The Erie Canal was part of the unknown subjects. It has been interesting to know, and learned that the Americans have had intension of shaping and preserve its history. And great historians, they would give out even the smallest details that helped make this nation what it is today.
Admittedly, 2/3 of the world’s population living with water shortages is a scary enough statistic to send a shiver up the spine. Barlow doesn’t stop there however; she goes on to say that only 2 % of the U.S. rivers and wetlands remain untouched. What does that mean for the creatures that lived there? Covered that too, “37% of freshwater fish are at risk of ...
The Long Island Sound is an estuary, and is in fact one of the largest in the world. An estuary is a place where salt water from the ocean mixes with fresh water from the rivers that drain from the land. Moreover, like other estuaries, the Long Island Sound has an abundance of fish and other waterfowl that add to the natural balance of the island, as well as one of the most important economic factors (Tedesco). Like other estuaries around the world, the Sound provides breeding, feeding, nesting, and nursery areas for many species that will spend most of their adult lives in the oceans (Long Island Sound Study). Despite these similarities to other estuaries, the Long Island Sound is unique from anywhere else in the world. Unlike other estuaries, the Long Island Sound does not just have one connection to the sea but it has two. It has two major sources of fresh water flowing into the bay that empty into the ocean. It combines this two-...
“Summary Report for: Fish and Game Wardens”. O Net Online. 2014.Web. 4 April 2014. >.
During the summers the oxygen content atop the water normally has a salinity level consistent with “more than 8 milligrams per liter”; but when oxygen content drops down to “less than 2 milligrams per liter” the water is then known to be in hypoxic state (CENR, 2000; USGS, 2006). Hypoxia is the result of oxygen levels decreasing to the point where aquatic organisms can no longer survive in the water column. Organisms such as fish, shrimps, and crabs are capable to evacuate the area but the fauna that cannot move either become stress and/or die. Due to this, many call the hypoxia zone the “dead zone” (Overview, 2008; USGS, 2006).
Lake Erie is a fascinating biological system despite many years of climate and human destruction along with ecosystem challenges. The burning river now has become the greatest ecosystem recovery of the world.
Edgar Allan Poe’s “The Cask of Amontillado” is a horror story about revenge and murder that occurred half a century ago. Through the haunting confession of the narrator, Montresor, the reader is able to feel what Fortunato had endured half a century ago. In this tale of revenge and murder the dark, damp, and bone-filled catacombs provide a contrast to life during the “madness of the carnival” (553).
The Erie Canal is a waterway in New York that runs 363 miles from Albany, New York, on the Hudson River to Buffalo, New York, at Lake Erie, completing a navigable water route from the Atlantic Ocean to the Great Lakes. The canal contains 36 locks which allows a boat to go from one level of a water to another level lower by raising the water level in one section which lets the boat move from one lock to the next. By doing this, the Erie Canal makes a once non-accessible waterway a common mean of transportation for both goods and people.
Einarsson S. M. & Gudbergsson G. (2013). The effects of the net fishery closure on angling
This paper introduces the environmental concerns of the loss of coastal wetlands. The paper will discuss the significance of wetlands and the devastation that is occurring because of human activity. Wetlands are an essential element of our environment both ecological and societal; conservation will be essential for the preservation of these precious ecosystems.
The Great Lakes are one of the most plentiful and prosperous regions in the world. The Great Lakes area is arguably one of the most wonderful places on earth. Well known for its agriculture, tourism, harbors, cities, and of course the water. However, things are not always as blissfully perfect as they seem. There are many things endangering the great lakes. For instance, a big factor of endangerment of the Great Lakes is Pollution. Others aspects of why the Great Lakes are struggling is the amount of habitat loss and the increasing intake of invasive species. These distructful elements are all key components for the Great Lakes to be severely damaged in the future. Since the 1960’s and even beforehand, society had been struggling to take care
Competition and predation are two key factors that affect the stability of an ecosystem, such as a lake. There are three theories on the affects of competition. Competition may lead to competitive exclusion, stable coexistence, or niche differentiation. It has been shown that in marine environments, species are strong competitors for both light and nutrients and thus competition leads only to competitive exclusion (Passarge et al. 2006). The competitive exclusion principle states that if two species compete for the same resource in the same location, then one of those species will go extinct because one species will be the better competitor (Jenson 2010). Another factor in ecosystem diversity is predation. The predator and prey relationship is a complicated one. Populations go through cycles of high abundance and low abundance. Many data seem to indicate that predators are able to reduce prey populations in density-dependent situations (Freeman 2008). One example of this is the study of the snowshoe hair and the lynx. This study proved that the hair populations and the lynx...
Similarly, another way fishing effects biodiversity and marine ecosystem function is being effected in-directly through possible fishing of species holding ecosystem engineer traits. So through increasing fishing pressures and the loss of particular fish species through disturbance, or bycatch that could be a possible ecosystem engineers, loss of such species can cause serious disturbance and influence both biodiversity and ecosystem function at a much faster rate (Coleman and Williams, 2002). Little research has been published on examples of marine vertebrate as ecosystem engineers, in spite there being many species that burrow or species that re-structure their habitats. An example of species that have had more in-depth research are the tilefish