• I wanted to take this opportunity to provide an introduction to Lake Huron
• My talk includes a brief history of the fishery
• And a review of cooperative International management
• With an overview of the GLFC and the GL management process
•  Lake Huron is the 3rd largest Great Lake by volume,
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•Second largest by area,
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•Fifth largest freshwater lake in the world.
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• Large drainage area (land drainage larger than lake size)
• It has the longest shoreline of the Great Lakes, counting the shorelines of its 30,000 islands.  
• Some of the unique features of the lake include:
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• Manitoulin Island is the largest freshwater island in the world.
• Georgian Bay and Saginaw Bay are the two largest bays on the Great Lakes.
• Georgian Bay is large enough to be among the world's 20 largest lakes.
• Lake Huron was the first \Great Lakes discovered by European explorers.
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• As they traveled up the Ottawa River to Lake Nippissing, the French River to Georgian Bay.
• At the time French discoverers knew nothing of other lakes, and called it “La Mer Douce”, or the sweet or fresh-water sea.
• Alewife invaded in the early 1930s
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•With the collapse of lake trout and other populations by the 1950s their population exploded by the late 1950s and 1960s
• Sea lamprey controls in the 1960s.
• Although the population on the shores of Lake Huron is low compared to the other lower Great Lakes, the close proximity to high density southern populations makes Lake Huron a destination for fishing, boating, cottaging and other forms of recreation.
• The original Lake Huron fish ecosystem had lake trout as the main predator (keystone) with walleye and burbot playing a lesser role. • The prey base was dominated by lake herring and sculpins to a lesser extent. • Bloaters, round whitefish and lake whitefish we lesser prey items.
• Today chinook salmon are the main consumer feeding mainly on exotic forage (alewife and smelt). • Lake trout are still a large factor due to stocking but their consumption rate is much lower than chinook and they have a more varied diet. • Burbot have increased, while walleye have declined. • Brown and rainbow trout play a smaller role as predators •  Alewife are the main prey with smelt second.  But their abundance can fluctuate significantly. • Lake herring & sculpins as prey are down significantly, bloater has increased slightly in recent years.
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• We have learned that the Great Lakes still need proper management.
• This graph shows the growth rates of chinook salmon in Michigan at the time of the collapse and outbreak of bacterial kidney disease compared to growth rates in Lake Huron in the late 1990s.
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• I would now like to give a brief overview of the function of GLFC • and the planning documents that have been developed under the coordination of the GLFC that pertain to Lake Huron
•The GLFC was established by Canada and the U.S. in 1955.
• The hierarchy of the GLFC has a number of other boards and committees that address specific fisheries concerns.  A board of Commissioners direct the Commission and they have advisors from both sides of the border.
BOTE - Board of Technical Experts
FHCC- Fish Habitat Conservation Committee
SLIC - Sea Lamprey Integration Committee
Fish Health Committee
Law Enforcement Committee
• Two major responsibilities:
•develop and coordinate programs of research on the Great Lakes, and on the basis of findings recommend measures which will permit the maximum sustained productivity of stocks of fish of common concern.
• Formulate and implement a program to eradicate or minimize sea lamprey populations in the Great Lakes.
• The Commission is required to publish or authorize the publication of scientific or other information obtained in the performance of its duties.
• Numerous agencies are involved in the GLFC process.
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• Each lake has a Lake Committee which is formed of natural-resources managers that address issues of common interest about Great Lakes fisheries.
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• Each Lake Committee, is comprised of one representative from each management authority.
• Under the direction of the Lake Huron Committee, the Lake Huron Technical Committee addresses tasks assigned from the Lake Committee.  It is formed from specialists (most often Great Lakes biologists) who provide technical advice to the Lake Committee.
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• This process helps to identify overlapping issues and concerns and provides a more coordinated approach to fisheries management on the Great Lakes.
• Each of the agencies is a signatory of the Joint Strategic Plan for Management of Great Lake Fisheries.  This planning document guides the management of fisheries in the Great Lakes.
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• Some of the management efforts conducted through the GLFC include:
• Environmental objectives are not done but are a target, GIS work being done as a beginning in assessment current situation.
• I would now like to give a brief overview of the function of GLFC • and the planning documents that have been developed under the coordination of the GLFC that pertain to Lake Huron
• Within SGLFMP the need for individual lake FCOs are identified.
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• The purpose of this Symposium is to assess how effectively we are meeting the objectives of the FCOs.
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•This symposium will present the updated State of Lake Huron in 1999.
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• FCOs are assessed by a state of the lake report.
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•The report will review the current status of the lake community relative to the FCO’s.
• I hope this introduction to the Lake Huron and the GLFC will help in providing a background to the talks you will be hearing over the next two days.