They’ve had a handful of conversations with curious neighbors who want to know why these two women are tromping around in waders with a collection of traps. The pond the mother-daughter duo have been charged with surveying this spring happens to be located in a residential area. In 2016 the program even won an award from the Department of Natural Resources. Most of these little ponds are tiny bodies of water that dry up in the summer and that you might never notice unless you were looking for them.īut with the help of volunteers, plenty of people now have their eyes trained on the ponds, and their data is helping guide conservation and development decisions. Not a fish, Burmeister clarified, it was a type of fairy shrimp, a macroinvertebrate that may eventually serve as a tasty meal for larger creatures like salamanders.Įrica recorded the name of the creature in her chart, then she and Aria emptied the trap and closed it back up.Įrica and Aria are both volunteers for the Milwaukee Wetland Monitoring program, a citizen-science effort aimed at documenting some portion of the 400 ephemeral wetlands that still exist in Milwaukee County. It was smaller than a hairpin, with a tiny black eye, and its sides inflated ever so slightly as she watched. “There’s the fish and there’s a bunch of snails.”īurmeister traipsed over to look at the wriggling creature, gently cupping it in her hand. “There’s a little fish in there!” Aria announced excitedly. As Aria opened it, Erica pulled out a sheet of paper so she could record the species they found inside. The funnel-shaped contraption hung from a low tree, half-immersed in pond water. It was a sunny day with a light breeze, and no one seemed bothered by the chill water pressing against their waders as they stepped toward the first wire trap. The pun elicited chuckles from Aria’s mother, Erica Hayden, and Emilie Burmeister, the assistant natural areas coordinator for Milwaukee County Parks. “Guess you could say we’re in a bit of a … sticky situation.” “Want to see this algae?” called out 13-year-old Aria Hayden as she pushed through the knee-deep water toward one of the traps she set with her mother a day earlier. On one sunny April day, amidst the natural and engine-generated din, came the crunch of booted feet marching over dried twigs and leaves, then the watery burble of those same feet wading into the pond. Traffic hums as cars and motorcycles stream down the road toward IKEA, the first of this furniture chain built in Wisconsin. The pond hidden on one side of an old soybean field in Barloga Woods is anything but quiet.Ĭhorus frogs produce a cacophony of rippling croaks. Collection 4 – Lesson Plans from Our Monthly PBS Program.Collection 3 – Virtual Field Trips in the Great Lakes.Collection 2 – Threats to the Great Lakes.Collection 1 – An Exploration of the Great Lakes.Beneath the Surface: The Line 5 Pipeline in the Great Lakes.Politics, Policy, Environmental Justice.The Catch: News about the Lakes You Love.Ask the Great Lakes Now Team Your PFAS Question.Ask Your Question About the Great Lakes.
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