Professor singing the blues about invasive species

From Great Lakes Wiki

David Jude could never have known that a chance discovery in 1990 would forever change his professional and musical career.

Research scientist and professor, Jude has been working on Great Lakes issues since the early 70s and is the leading authority on the round goby, a Great Lakes invasive species. While Jude is known in professional circles for his work, he is also known in a different circle- a musical one.

How he got to be singing the blues

When he graduated from Minnesota University in 1966 his brother gave him a guitar for graduation. “I always used to write poetry when I was young... and then it was a natural jump from writing poems to writing songs you just have to make up lyrics and a melody.” During his career at Michigan State University Jude played with a church band called the Plastic Jesus Band. When he moved to Ann Arbor in 1973 to work for University of Michigan, Jude went solo.

In the mid 90s Jude wrote about something near and dear to his work. “The Galloping Goby Blues” is a song Jude wrote about the round goby. "We got evil fish coming into town/ slippin' in our lakes without a sound/ and unless we stop them cold/ they'll beat our natives down/ there's egg-sucking' fish-bitin' gobies all around” Jude sings. Surely, something to sing the blues about. Listen to the song. (Lyrics are below.)

Jude has had his songs performed in concert and has also appeared on the student radio show in Ann Arbor playing his music and talking about the Great Lakes.

In the past decade, Jude has mixed his academic and musical careers. He says that, “Once I found the goby and sort of became notorious for that I decided that I am old enough now that I am not going to ruin my career by making a fool of myself,” so he decided to sing his song at the first round goby conference in Chicago. He then began ending his seminars on gobies by singing the ‘blues.’

Jude calls his music ‘folk,’ but drawing on such artists as Gordon Lightfoot, Bob Dylan and Dire Straits he struggles to define himself. His music is not just appreciated in the states, he was recently asked to sing it at the International Conference for Great Lakes Research in Windsor.

Other titles from Jude’s work echo the Great Lakes. “Shadow River” is a song about people’s abuse of rivers. He also has written songs about bald eagles and abuse of the land. Jude says that if someone were to run across his song the should, “Remember, I tell everybody, that when I was in the Plastic Jesus band I was told not to sing, that I was only supposed to play. So, don’t expect that you are going to hear a Gordon Lightfoot type voice, I do my best, but it is pretty horrible.”

Jude continues to write and perform. He says that his colleagues, “Find it funny and think that he has a strange sense of humor,” but he definitely adds a new dimension to Great Lakes culture.

The discovery of a lifetime

In 1990 Jude was working for Detroit Edison on the St. Clair River at the Bell River Power Plant and came across something fishy. The filter on the water uptake for the plants cooling system caught a small fish that Jude had never seen before. After looking though some texts and consulting colleagues Jude determined it was a tube nose goby and was probably a chance encounter.

An article in the Detroit Free Press about the discovery sparked interest with a man from Canada. The man contacted Jude claming that he had the same species in a fish tank in his basement. Jude was suspicious, but followed up. The man proved true to his claim and Jude took the species back to the lab an identified it as a round goby- the not so innocuous cousin of the tube nose goby.

After his discovery the round goby started popping up in ports all around the Great Lakes. Jude speculated that it was being carried around the Great Lakes in the ballast water of various ships, but could not figure out how. The bottom-dweller lived at depths far below the surface waters where ballast water is pumped in.

It was not until a few years later when Jude picked up larval goby in his trolling nets that he found the solution. The larval goby, only 6-10 mm in length, were making a nocturnal migration to the surface and then being sucked into ballast water. Causing them to be dumped in ports around the lakes.

In the past decade round gobies have thrived in the Great Lakes, feeding on the abundant zebra and quagga mussel populations. While this is beneficial, because the round goby is a food source for predator fish such as trout and keeps the food chain healthy, there are also some concerns.

Since the round goby feeds on mussels, which are filter organisms, biomagnification is a major concern. Jude has found in his research that gobies in polluted areas have incredibly high concentrations of contaminants. Mussels are also passing on type E botulism to gobies, which are then killing sturgeon, loons, walleyes and gulls.

There are also unanticipated benefits of the round goby. The Lake Erie water snake was near extinction before the round goby came on the scene. The snakes have discovered that the male gobies will not leave nests while eggs are being hatched and attack for an easy meal. Not only is this beneficial in reviving the Lake Erie water snake, it also puts a cap on round goby populations since it drastically impedes reproduction.

[edit] The Song

THE GALLOPING GOBY BLUES

We got evil fish coming into town

Slippin’ in our lakes without a sound

An unless we stop them cold, they’ll beat our natives down

There’s egg-suckin, fish bitin’, exotics all around

There’s ruffe in our largest greatest lake

Zebras, Mitten crabs, it’ll keep you awake

There’s Bythotrephes in the summer, Dreissena in the fall

If the Quaggas don’t get you, you’ve broken Darwin’s law

Round gobies now rule among the rocks

They can live out of water, they’ll bite you in your socks

And if we don’t stop them soon, there’ll only be bad news

I’ ve got those egg suckin’, fish chewin’, galloping goby blues

They’re out on the land chasin’ hogs

They eat cats, and especially like dogs

They’ll eat your mottled sculpin, have logperch for brunch

Chew darters for supper, eat trout-perch for lunch

Female gobies have sex everyday

And I can’t help but admiring their way

They reproduce in beer cans, logs, and old TVs

They came across with Dracula from the Black and Caspian Seas

Next they’ll be flying or’ our land

Eating birds and pushing contraband

And if we try to sterilize, poison, or eradicate

They’ll end up in cyberspace and gleefully mutate

There’s gobies in Superior and St. Clair

Gobies running rampant everywhere

Gobies in the bathroom, gobies in the sink

They know where you’re going, they know what you think

Illinois made gobies their state fish

Ohio stocked them to honor a fisherman’s wish

Minnesota offered refuge to keep the gobies free

Indiana makes money you can fish them for a fee

Throughout the Great Lakes they’ve been found

And soon they’ll be Mississippi bound

They love vacation cruises, they’ve paid all their dues

I’ve got those egg suckin, fish chewin, galloping goby blues

Round gobies are the smartest in the lake

They can read, write, and even calculate

Soon they’ll steal our money and all our women too

Oh, I’m all torn up, despondent, round gobies I eschew

Round gobies are filling every void

Soon they’ll become humanoid

I’m getting so annoyed, I just have no clues

I’m depressed, overwhelmed with the galloping goby blues

Those gobies are forever, alas what can we do.

The Wandering Spirit