The endangered Caspian tern is attempting to breed on Lake Michigan after a long hiatus. The merlin, a falcon of special concern in Wisconsin, hunts open wetlands on long coastlines, choosing to nest in tall conifers near shore. Wetland regulars, including muskrats, shrews, salamanders, frogs, turtles and snakes, appear in coastal sites. Rarer appearances are made by the Lake Huron locust at the coastal dunes, and Hine's Emerald Dragonfly near alkaline streams on Lake Michigan. In the water, the Atlantic elliptio, a mussel, rests in coastal estuaries.
Fish benefit from coastal wetlands.
Different species take refuge from the cold, deep lake waters in the warm, fertile wetland shallows, where food is abundant and aquatic plants like the bulrush provide cover from predators. Juvenile smallmouth bass and other young fish stay in sheltered costal wetlands until they are mature enough to move into deeper waters. Northern pike use wetlands as spawning grounds. Now pike populations have moved up the coast to Green Bay and Door County, where the lush Mink River Estuary offers the wetland habitat northern pike require to reproduce. What they can't endure is human enthusiasm for the shore.