http://www.startribune.com/climate-change-is-a-culprit-in-walleye-s-decline/302314741/
Tullibee, a cold-water loving fish that is a critical prey for walleye, is largely gone from Mille Lacs. In fact, tullibee is in trouble across the state — a clear sign that Minnesota’s lakes are changing as fast as the climate and creating an uncertain future for the state’s prized fishing industry.
By the end of this century, tullibee will be gone or drastically reduced in two-thirds of the lakes where it lives now, according to a sophisticated climate prediction model by state and University of Minnesota scientists. Other coldwater fish like yellow perch, burbot and lake trout are also declining, while warmwater fish like bluegill and crappies are on the rise.
“It’s a pretty striking story,” said Peter Jacobson, a fish biologist with the state Department of Natural Resources. He’s been studying tullibee since heat-related fish kills first got his attention in the hot summer of 2006. “The recent declines have been mostly from climate.”
Lake Mille Lacs supports a massive tourism industry centered around year-long walleye fishing (it's kind of a cult up here). The collapse of the walleye population has cost the state many, many millions just this year alone. And it's not predicted to get better.
With the loss of coldwater prey fish, the walleyes have resorted to eating their young. Fish surveys have been unable to find ANY walleyes younger than 4-5 years, even though they spawn hundreds of millions of young each spring. And as the old fish are either caught by fisherman, eagles, or just die of age, the numbers rapidly fall towards zero.
Huh, forced to eat your own young just to survive another day. Somehow, that sounds like the perfect way to describe the situation we humans find ourselves in.
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