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So many of us live in Wisconsin’s Northwoods or Michigan’s Upper Peninsula because we love what surrounds us every day. We love the clear water, the clean air, and the lush forests. WXPR’s environmental reporting as part of our expanded series, The Stream, focuses on the natural world around us. The Stream is now about more than just water: it brings you stories of efforts to conserve our wild lands and lakes, scientific studies of animal and plant life, and potential threats to our environment. What do you wonder about the environment in our region? Ask us a question and it could be a future story on The Stream! Use the form below to submit your question.
61 Episodes
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Just a few years ago, the very existence of Town Line Lake Park was in jeopardy.
Habitat destruction is the driving force behind pollinator population decline.In response, the No Mow May movement started about five years ago to encourage people to leave some flowers for the bees in early spring.
Nearly 70,000 acres in Oneida, Forest, and Langlade Counties are under conservation easements to be protected in perpetuity.The Pelican River Forest is praised by conservationists for protecting increasingly rare contiguous forestland in the state.
The time of year - spring - is but one important factor playing into the intensity of frog calls.
Trees for Tomorrow in Eagle River has several invasive species it’s working to remove from its campus.The work happened to align with a new program Blackwell Job Corps in Forest County is piloting.
In northern Iron County sits more than 3,000 acres of a largely undeveloped flowage along the west branch of the Montreal River.The Gile Flowage will remain that way after the county is set to receive more than $4 million in federal funding to conserve it.
For WXPR’s The Stream, Hannah Davis-Reid spoke with environmental experts about how the USDA's land management plan revisions impacts the Chequamegon- Nicolet National Forest.
Emerald Ash Borer has decimated ash tree population in the U.S. since the early 2000s.The invasive species has slowly been making its way north in Wisconsin and Michigan.Researchers with the USDA Forest Service Northern Research Station are working to get the species under control while also trying to restore ecosystems that have been destroy by them.
The upper Midwest rarely sees the type of high-intensity, destructive wildfires that the west coast sees, but that doesn’t mean it can’t happen here.The Ottawa National Forest works to make sure if such a fire happened in the U.P., people and homes have the best chance of surviving.
For more than a decade now, the Lac du Flambeau School District has brought back a piece of Ojibwe culture that had been missing for nearly two centuries. The Winter Games give students a chance to learn about their culture while having some fun. But a growing concern is how climate change may impact the games.
while the higher than average temperatures we’ve been experiencing this winter are because of El Niño, Vavrus says Wisconsin has also been experiencing warmer winters due to climate change, with the last 25 years generally well above normal compared with previous years.
A group of college students from Milwaukee are spending this week at Kemp Natural Resources Station at Woodruff.They’re collecting data and testing their hypotheses.The catch? They’re not science students.
For decades, the Keweenaw Peninsula in the U.P. was home to more than 100 copper mines.One of the byproducts of that is stamp sands, the practice of crushing rock and extracting heavy metals.Remnants of it are still found throughout the peninsula.
There are numerous insects that threaten the health of forests.One of the greatest challenges is finding them fast enough to stop the pests before they do irreversible damage.For WXPR’s The Stream, Katie Thoresen spoke with a Rhinelander-based scientist leading a project to try and meet this challenge.It’s part two of our series highlighting local researchers who have received Bipartisan Infrastructure Law funding.
As the Earth’s climate changes, scientists are figuring out how to best protect and preserve our natural resources.In Northwoods, that means how to make our forests more resilient.A local researcher has been awarded more than 1 million dollars in Bipartisan Infrastructure Law funding to help solve that problem.
Aquatic Invasive Species are some of the greatest threats to lake health in the Northwoods.Once an invasive establishes itself in a water body, it can cost thousands of dollars to remove it, if removing it is even possible at all.Rusty crayfish has been one such invasive species.First introduced to Trout Lake in Vilas County in the late 70s and 80s, the crayfish quickly settled in with population estimates in the thousands by the late 2000s.But now it seems nature is correcting course.
Further testing for PFAS in eastern Oneida County has revealed contamination in some lakes in the area.WXPR’s Katie Thoresen attended Tuesday’s town hall meeting with DNR staff. She gives us an update as part of WXPR’s The Stream.
Many people often split the sciences and arts as using two different halves of their brains.But a group of scientists and artists working in Vilas County argue there’s a lot of overlap between the two disciplines.
A major lakes study in the Northwoods will be used as a baseline for research in the decades to come.Last year, 250 lakes across northern Wisconsin, Michigan, and Minnesota were sampled.WXPR’s Katie Thoresen spoke with some of the scientists involved about what this project will mean for air and water quality in the Northwoods.
Anglers are always hoping to reel in that big musky or walleye in the Northwoods.To create a healthy habitat for those fish to grow, the Wisconsin DNR needs to know how fish populations are doing.
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