Edith Gondwe AMBROSE PATTULO FUND FOR ENVIRONMENTAL ISSUES “Koka!!!Koka!!!Koka!!!” – These are the words you hear being screamed repeatedly on the shores of Lake Malawi, in Southern Africa. Literally translated to “pull, pull, pull,” this is the sound of fishermen pulling to shore a boat from the night’s harvest of fish…

Kelly Kapsar The bright orange garment I’m struggling into looks something like the strange love child of a traffic cone and a spacesuit. This seems fitting because I feel as though the Arctic Ocean, where we’re headed, is nearly as isolated as outer space. …

Trey McClinton With dawn breaking to the southeast, the sound of wings cutting through the air began to fill the sky. The soft chuckles of a duck call greeted a pair of mallards as they dipped down towards decoys floating with the wind. Then, at the legal hour, a shotgun…

About the artist: Trish Brockman is a M.A. student in the Applied Forest and Wildlife Ecology Lab in the Department of Fisheries and Wildlife. While she’s not in the UP chasing birds and turtles she illustrates wildlife for fun and as a side hustle. Her favorite subject is herps, but she is always looking for new ideas and critters to draw.

Emily Morgan Liljestrand If you exit left out of the elevator on the basement floor of MSU’s Natural Resources building, and walk past the conference room with green walls, past Dr. Brian Roth’s wet lab, and even past Jill Cruth and Jim Schneider’s offices, there’s a perpendicular sparse hallway. In…

Emily L. Mensch and Ellen M. Weise With a mouth that pays homage to horror movies, sea lamprey have become an infamous invasive species in the Great Lakes. Their invasion through the expansion of the Welland Canal in 1919 decimated the valuable Great Lakes fisheries and caused remarkable harm to…

You can find PDF versions of Spotlight magazine from previous years HERE.