Sturgeon Bay is an arm of Green Bay extending southeastward approximately 10 miles into the

Door Peninsula The Door Peninsula is a peninsula in eastern Wisconsin, separating the southern part of the Green Bay from Lake Michigan. The peninsula includes northern Kewaunee County, northeastern Brown County, and the mainland portion of Door Co ...

at the city of Sturgeon Bay, located approximately halfway up the Door Peninsula. The bay is connected to Lake Michigan by the Sturgeon Bay Ship Canal. The Potawatomi name for Sturgeon Bay is "Na-ma-we-qui-tong".

Origin

The bay seems to represent the pre-glacial path of the

Menominee River The Menominee River is a river in northwestern Michigan and northeastern Wisconsin in the United States. It is approximately long,U.S. Geological Survey. National Hydrography Dataset high-resolution flowline dataThe National Map, accessed Dece ...

, with the valley deepened by glacial carving and then submerged into rising lakewaters.

Bridges

Three bridges cross the bay, including the historic

Sturgeon Bay Bridge The Sturgeon Bay Bridge (known as the Michigan Street Bridge) is a historic bridge in Sturgeon Bay, Wisconsin, United States. The bridge was built in 1929 and opened July 4, 1931, with a grand parade where it was officially dedicated as a Doo ...

, and the recently finished Oregon Street Bridge.

Fish

Sturgeon Bay and Little Sturgeon (just to the south of Sturgeon Bay) are considered

biodiversity hotspot A biodiversity hotspot is a biogeographic region with significant levels of biodiversity that is threatened by human habitation. Norman Myers wrote about the concept in two articles in ''The Environmentalist'' in 1988 and 1990, after which the c ...

s because they support a large number of different fish species. Researchers collected

viral hemorrhagic septicemia Viral hemorrhagic septicemia (VHS) is a deadly infectious fish disease caused by Viral hemorrhagic septicemia virus. It afflicts over 50 species of freshwater and marine fish in several parts of the Northern Hemisphere. Different strains of the v ...

viruses from 184 different fish from 2003 to 2017. Two were found from 2007–2010 infecting smallmouth bass within Sturgeon Bay. Each of them was a different variant of a type not found in the middle or lower Great Lakes.

Mayflies

In June 2016, an estimated several thousand mayflies hatched in Sawyer Bay (within Sturgeon Bay). This was the result of an experiment to stock millions of eggs from the species ''

Hexagenia limbata ''Hexagenia limbata'', the giant mayfly, is a species of mayfly in the family Ephemeridae. It is native to North America where it is distributed widely near lakes and slow-moving rivers. The larvae, known as nymphs, are aquatic and burrow in mud ...

'' and ''

Hexagenia bilineata ''Hexagenia bilineata'' is a species of mayfly in the family Ephemeridae. It is native to North America where it is found in the Upper Mississippi Valley. Sometimes adults of this mayfly are so abundant as to cause a nuisance because of their en ...

'' in the lower Green Bay area in an attempt to reintroduce the species. The last mayfly from the genus ''

Hexagenia ''Hexagenia'' is a genus of mayfly in the family Ephemeridae, the common burrower mayflies. Species These eight species belong to the genus ''Hexagenia'': * '' Hexagenia albivitta'' (Walker, 1853) * '' Hexagenia atrocaudata'' McDunnough, 1924 * ...

'' had been collected in the lower Green Bay area in 1955. As mayfly populations can be unstable and not all stocking locations appeared to be successful, as of 2017 it was not yet known whether it would be possible for populations of ''Hexagenia'' mayflies to become self-sustaining.Evaluation of lower Green Bay benthic fauna with emphasis on re-ecesis of Hexagenia mayfly nymphs
by Jerry L. Kaster, Christopher M. Groff, J. Val Klump, Danielle L. Rupp, Suneil Iyer, Ashely Hansen, Samantha Barbour, and Louisa Hall, doi.org/10.1016/j.jglr.2018.06.006, ''Journal of Great Lakes Research'' (2018), p. 14

Climate

Gallery

Notes

Bays of Wisconsin Bodies of water of Door County, Wisconsin Bays of Lake Michigan {{DoorCountyWI-geo-stub