ORAL PRESENTER CO-AUTHORS: Amy Carrozzino-Lyon, Gwenith Malokofsky, and Fiona Crowley-Oswald, UW-Green Bay; Isabelle Haverkampf, Northland College TITLE: Wild rice with fish: A winning recipe for restoration ABSTRACT: Green Bay, Lake Michigan, was once home to seemingly endless beds of manoomin (wild rice, Zizania palustris). This “good berry” provided sustenance for thousands of years along with habitat for fish and wildlife. However, colonial settlement, followed by industrialization and development in the last 150 years, resulted in the decline of wild rice in Green Bay’s coastal wetlands. Since 2016, conservation partners have worked to restore wild rice on the Green Bay west shore. Wetland monitoring indicates success varies, generally following an environmental gradient from the mouth of the Fox River in the south to the Menominee River on the border with Michigan. Established rice beds represent a valuable aquatic habitat for grazing waterfowl as well as spawning and nursery habitat for fish. We surveyed fish assemblages using both active and passive gears in two restoration sites that did not have wild rice present and two sites with wild rice growing in the summer of 2023. A total of 36 fish species were observed, with yellow perch and banded killifish as the most abundant. Coastal wetlands were particularly important as nursery habitat for yellow perch, which is an important sport and commercial fish species. Results indicate that Green Bay wetlands serve as important fish habitat, but simple presence of wild rice is not a primary factor. However, successful wild rice restoration may be an indicator of diverse, healthy wetland ecosystems that provide valuable benefits to fish, wildlife, and people. BIO: Titus Seilheimer is the fisheries specialist for Wisconsin Sea Grant and has studied all five Great Lakes coastal wetlands for more than two decades in the US and Canada.