They also appear to be dramatically changing the plant and animal life in the lake by increasing the penetration of sunlight and, therefore, concentrating life forms in deeper waters or on the lake bottom. It would not be the first dramatic change for Ohio's Great Lake. Human interaction with Lake Erie has remade the lake several times over in the century. Fishermen in 1900 would have found their nets filled with lake whitefish, blue pike, burbot, sauger, lake herring and sturgeon. But these fish were all but wiped out by overfishing, the industrial warming and pollution of the lake and by dams that cut off spawning areas.
Blue pike is now extinct.
Many of Ohio's embattled wildlife species have come back, partly because of forest restoration and sometimes because state game managers encouraged them. County road crews battle beavers, which like to dam drainage culverts. The bald eagle, wild turkey and river otter are success stories for the Ohio Division of Wildlife, and the agency hopes to add ospreys and trumpeter swans to that list. Even animals that are not encouraged, such as the black bear and coyote, are returning to Ohio. Some animals, though, probably won't ever return, Glotzhober said.