In the early twentieth century, a mysterious ecological crisis nearly wiped out the fish that most people cared about in | dG1fZlZJdTNDalNHUVU
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00:00The Great Lakes have a natural organizing force for the people of the region.
00:12The vastness of them is really hard to convey.
00:16The Great Lakes region holds one-fifth of Earth's surface freshwater.
00:23They're very, very important to our economy.
00:26We've got the world's largest source of clean, fresh water.
00:30Kids grow up and they have that memory.
00:33They associate it with their time and their summers with their family on the shores of
00:38Lake Michigan or Lake Huron.
00:40And fishing is an integral part of that.
00:43The fish that swim in the water are part of the lifeblood of the Great Lakes region.
00:49The importance of fishing is part of that full relationship with the natural world.
00:56Fishing is my life.
00:57I started fishing as a young kid.
01:01You see young adults, you see women, and you see men in their own fishing.
01:06They just enjoy it.
01:07It's just a beautiful place and a true outdoorsman.
01:10This is heaven.
01:12Fishing in the Great Lakes is such a valuable resource.
01:18For most of history, people simply assumed that the Great Lakes were so vast and packed
01:23with fish that there would always be plenty to catch.
01:26It was just too easy to throw a net in the water and pull money out.
01:33But by the 1950s, everything had changed.
01:37The fish most important to people were nearly gone.
01:42No one could explain it, let alone fix it.
01:45Whether you were in Lake Ontario or Lake Superior or everywhere in between, it was dire.
01:51From small towns up to major cities, it was people's livelihoods.
01:56We were at a loss as to what we were going to do.
02:00Short on hope, some remarkable people tackled the mystery.
02:05Their odd discovery still menaces the Great Lakes today.
02:10It's been described as a moonshot.
02:13Probably the largest scale species recovery program ever.
02:18Their battle dramatically changed how people from all walks of life connect with these
02:24freshwater seas.
02:28We don't want to lose this.
02:29We've got to protect it.
02:43We've got to protect it.
02:44We've got to protect it.
02:45We've got to protect it.
02:46We've got to protect it.
02:47We've got to protect it.
02:48We've got to protect it.
02:49We've got to protect it.
02:50We've got to protect it.
02:51We've got to protect it.
02:52We've got to protect it.
02:53We've got to protect it.
02:54We've got to protect it.
02:55We've got to protect it.
02:56We've got to protect it.
02:57We've got to protect it.
02:58We've got to protect it.
02:59We've got to protect it.
03:00We've got to protect it.
03:01We've got to protect it.
03:02We've got to protect it.
03:03We've got to protect it.
03:04We've got to protect it.
03:05We've got to protect it.
03:06We've got to protect it.