Fishers Wanted To Monitor Lamprey

<p><em></em></p> <p><em><a href="mailto:allenre@interlochen.org">By Bob Allen</a></em></p> <p>Great Lakes researchers are asking sport fishers to help track damage from the invasive sea lamprey by reporting fish caught that have lamprey attached or that have wounds or scars to the Lamprey Hunters program <a href="http://www.glfc.org/sealamp/lampreyhunter/stopinvader.htm" target="_blank">website.</a></p> <p>Sea lamprey latch onto fish and feed on their juices. They entered the Great Lakes 80 years ago through the Saint Lawrence Seaway and nearly destroyed the lake trout.</p> <p>Each year the Fish and Wildlife Service treats rivers to kill larvae from spawning lamprey.</p> <p>"This program operates always on the edge of failure, says Ellie Koon, a biologist with the Fish and Wildlife station in Ludington.</p> <p>Sea lamprey require constant control measures, to reduce their impact on the fishery. A few years ago their numbers were out of control in Lakes Michigan and Huron, but the agency adjusted the potency of its chemical treatment and applied it more frequently. Now Koon says lamprey numbers are close to Fish and Wildlife's target.</p> <p>"One big stream can have millions of larvae in it. And if we don't detect the larvae or we treat them a year after they should have been treated one stream could produce enough lampreys to overwhelm the lake," she says.</p> <p>Details and forms for the Lamprey Hunters reporting program are on the web site of the Great Lakes Fishery Commission.</p>