This document is the LMC's recommendation on goals and objectives for Lake Michigan's fish community. The intent of this document is to provide a framework for future decision making. Although seemingly straightforward, consensus management of complex systems like Lake Michigan is challenging. Scientific understanding of the ecology of the lake will always be incomplete. Managers, their clients (participants in the fishery), and others concerned about the lake will contimually face uncertainty about the best management policies. Establishment of fish-community objectives will help define a unified direction and purpose for the multitude of management activities occurring around the lake. Also, this document will focus attention on important issues and help communicate priorities to fishery and environmental managers, researchers, and public-policy makers.

This publication provides an historical review and evaluation of documented ecological effects associated with salmonine introductions to the Laurentian Great Lakes. The introduction of salmonines to the Great Lakes date back to the 1870s, when natural populations of native salmonines in the Great Lakes were in severe decline. Using established evaluation protocols, it was determined that there is evidence of significant ecological effects in six different categories: (1) diseases and parasites, (2) predation on native species, (3) competition for limiting resources, (4) genetic alteration, (5) environmental alteration and (6) community alteration. Taken together, this body of evidence supports the conclusion that the ongoing introduction of non-native salmonines poses an ecologically-significant risk to the Great Lakes ecosystem and its native organisms, and that the introductions should be terminated.