Spring ice is thawing earlier in lakes. What does that mean for life below the surface?

Short Wave

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🗓️ 2 March 2026

⏱️ 13 minutes

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Summary

Lakes are freezing later, thawing earlier and experiencing dramatic temperature swings in between. And all that throws off the delicate balance of life below the surface. And that has a major impact on the roughly 1.7 million ice fishers in the U.S. who spend millions of dollars buying equipment and guide services each year. Producer Berly McCoy explains how scientists are tracking those ecological changes by getting out on the ice — to fish.

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Transcript

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0:00.0	Support for NPR and the following message come from the William and Flora Hewlett Foundation,
0:05.4	investing in creative thinkers and problem solvers who help people, communities, and the planet flourish.
0:11.1	More information is available at Hewlett.org.
0:14.5	You're listening to Shortwave from NPR.
0:19.9	Hi, Shortwavers.
0:21.3	Emily Kwong here with producer Burley McCoy and part two of her changing Lake Ice
0:27.2	reporting.
0:28.3	Don't worry if you haven't listened to the other episode.
0:30.7	You don't need to appreciate this one.
0:32.5	Definitely not, Emily.
0:33.6	But quick recap, last episode we talked about how changing ice conditions are making it less safe to be on the ice, which is true where I live in Montana. Not only have there been warm spells, which make the lake ice less safe. This year, ice wasn't safe enough to walk on until the second week of January. Wow. And Emily, you know how much I love to ice fish. Yes, you live for ice fishing season
0:55.1	early. I know. And so far this year, that's been really tough here. So I recently went on a
1:01.1	ice fishing trip with a fisheries biologist named Zach Feiner. I'll say I did see one guy catch
1:06.3	one here yesterday. So he threw it back. So there's at least one fish out there for us.
1:12.7	Zach is in Madison, Wisconsin.
1:15.4	Wait, you left your family in Montana to go fishing all the way in Wisconsin?
1:19.3	In a heartbeat.
1:20.2	There's just no commitment more serious.
1:22.4	But really, I wanted to get on the ice with Zach to talk about how lakes everywhere are
1:27.0	losing ice and the
1:28.4	impact that that's having on lake ecosystems from disrupting their food chains to lowering biodiversity,
1:34.7	which could have a huge impact on your fishing whale of life.
	...

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