“It’s easy to imagine that fish are always abundant and they’re always there, but that’s not always the case,” says Dr. David Fielder, Ph.D Research Biologist with the Michigan Department of Natural Resources, as he reflects on the decline of natural fish habitat in Saginaw Bay, Michigan.

Over hundreds of years, logging, agriculture and heavy industrial development released significant run-off into the Saginaw Bay watershed. That contamination destroyed much of the native fish population and their breeding reefs throughout the bay, threatening not just the environment but the economy of multiple fishing communities across Michigan.

Coreyon is a recently released 15-minute film detailing the culmination of years of work by the Saginaw Bay Watershed Initiative Network to rebuild these historic fish spawning habitats and restore a resilient and diverse fish population throughout the Bay.