Maritime Lecture: Manistee River Lake Sturgeon

Maritime Museum Fall Lecture on Manistee River Lake Sturgeon: 20 Years of Restoration
 
South Haven, MI – Join the Michigan Maritime Museum for a powerful and educational evening focusing on two decades of effort, culture, and science in “Manistee River Lake Sturgeon: 20 Years of Restoration,” a lecture presented by a leading Fisheries Biologist from the Little River Band of Ottawa Indians (LRBOI) Natural Resources Department.
This lecture explores the 20-year journey to restore lake sturgeon to the Big Manistee River, an effort that intertwines traditional Anishinaabek cultural values with modern biological science. Once a thriving and sacred presence in the watershed, nmé now return in greatly diminished numbers, symbolic of a deeper cultural and ecological loss.
“The Big Manistee River watershed may once have held one of the largest nmé (sturgeon) populations in the Lake Michigan Basin. From time immemorial, the Anishinaabek reverenced the nmé and looked forward annually to the rite of spring when the Anishinaabek would reunite on the banks of the Big Manistee River for the nmé runs. Today, the nmé come back to the river not as a healthy component of either the river or Tribal culture. The nmé come back now embattled – only a few who can be called survivors. These reduced runs of nmé are cause for great disease among the Anishinaabek, yet these issues comprise much more than a single species of fish – they necessarily involve the breadth and scope of Anishinaabek culture, the cultures of all the People of the Great Lakes, the integrity of the Big Manistee watershed and the health of all species that live therein.” – Little River Band of Ottawa Indians
This lecture will present an overview of LRBOI’s Big Manistee River Nmé restoration efforts. This plan incorporates both cultural and biological criteria for establishing goals for restoration of the Big Manistee River nmé population. An LRBOI Cultural Context Task Group, composed of Tribal members and Tribal government staff, addressed the cultural context. Tribal biologists developed the biological criteria to be consistent and ultimately driven by the cultural context. Attendees will gain insight into the Nmé Stewardship Plan highlighting:

• Streamside stocking successes and challenges
• Juvenile and adult nmé recruitment
• Spawning population assessments
• The deep cultural ties between the Anishinaabek people and the nmé