The round goby, a homely little gray bottom-feeding fish covered in black and brown blotches, may prove to be one of the greatest dangers to Lake Erie's ecology in coming years, according to a new report on the smallest of the Great Lakes. Gobies are among a new wave of non-native invasive species that, like the zebra mussel before them, threaten to change the ecological balance of the narrow lake that stretches 210 miles from Toledo to Buffalo.
Gobies eat zebra mussels, which suck up contaminants from the lake bottom.
The danger, the report warns, is that Lake Erie's popular game fish will eat the gobies, and chemical contamination will move up the food chain. The warnings come from the Lake Erie Lake Management Plan, issued Thursday by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency and Environment Canada. We can't wait for another one. Margaret Wooster, executive director of Great Lakes United, an environmental watchdog, said the management plan makes optimistic assumptions on future chemical contamination, pays too little heed to the health of the 11 million people who draw their drinking water from Lake Erie, and will eventually have to face the fact that land use around the lake holds the key to its future well-being. Most of that land is in private hands.