In my last post I talked about how the Department of Natural Resources had put in place the Invasive Species Rule to prevent the spread of many invasive species including the one I discussed, the Sea Lamprey. For this weeks post I want to talk about the U.S Fish and Wildlife Service because in my research I’ve found that they work with several different groups in order to not only prevent the spread and increasing of Sea Lamprey populations but they also try to work with people to develop new technologies to decrease the threat of the Sea Lamprey. The different people and organizations that I’ll talk about in this post are all working with the U.S Fish and Wildlife Service under the Sea Lamprey Control Program.
One of the groups the U.S Fish and Wildlife Service works with is the Great Lakes Fishery commission. Acting as an agent through the Great Lakes Fishery they try to prevent the growth of Sea Lamprey by using the chemical control such as the lampricides to kill off the larvae, they use the mechanical and electrical barriers to trap the Sea Lamprey but still allow other fish to make their way through. One of the more interesting ways how they use pheromones to attract the Sea Lampreys which than leads them into the barriers or traps. One factor that I found in my research is that once the Sea Lampreys are captured they are actually sterilized which increases the possibility that a female will mate with a sterile male and in turn will also decrease the populations.
The U.S Fish and Wildlife Service also works with the Marquette Biological Station and they have developed the Larval Assessment Teams. These teams go to different streams and tributaries that they know have Sea Lamprey larvae or ones that they think they could have made it to. These teams find streams and tributaries that could be harboring Lamprey larvae, and what these teams do is they use specialized electrofishers to irritate larvae which than causes them to leave their burrows and allowing them to be captured and identified. The data that the teams collected has several different uses. The data can estimate Sea Lamprey larval populations in infested streams, it allows them to know which streams can be treated wit lampricides the following year, areas where the lampricides will need to be applied and how much larval populations are distributed within each stream. These teams survey between the months of April and October at a total 428 different streams and waterways with a total of 3,082 different sites. One aspect of these teams that I really liked was that when they survey states that are along the U.S and Canadian border they will actually work with the Department of Oceans and Fisheries of Canada staff. I really liked that they work together to address this problem because only through cooperation will this problem be able to be appropriately addressed.
Another fact about the Sea Lamprey Control Program is that the U.S Fish and Wildlife Service also use it to work with people to develop new technologies to control the Lamprey populations.
One idea that has been developed is the use of pheromones and alarm cues which would influence the Sea Lamprey migration behavior. Using the pheromones they can pull the lamprey into particular areas that will allow them to be trapped and than treated with lampricides. The alarm cues in turn push the lamprey away from areas that can’t be treated with lampricides.
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| Biological Science Technician Sean Soucy monitoring the push-pull study site where alarm cue and larval sea lamprey odor responses are being tested on the Upper Ocqueoc River (Lake Huron). - Photo Credit: Erica Adams, Michigan State University. |
Another interesting tactic is the idea of eel ladders. When trapping lampreys it’s difficult to trap them without also trapping other non-target species, the eel ladders allow it to be easier to trap and sort through the species caught and allow the release of non-lamprey species into better conditions. The eel ladders work by being placed upstream of fish passages and they have wetted ramps with vertical pegs that take advantage of the lamprey swimming style. When the lamprey’s scale the ladder they are than dropped into a retention basin, while the non-lamprey species are allowed to swim freely at the base of the ladder.
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| Biological Science Technicians Matt Bach and Bruce Eldridge monitoring eel ladder style traps at the Cheboygan River (Lake Huron) trap site. - Photo Credit: Savannah Bell, Biological Science Technician, USFWS. |
Another technology is the Pulse Direct Current which is a portable and low-voltage fish guidance system called NEMO that directs the lampreys into traps. The advantage of using NEMO besides the fact that it has a fun name is that they have been found to be very effective. It’s also a great tactic because it’s portable, easily deployed and capable of handling high flow events and debris loads.
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What I really like about the Sea Lamprey Control Program is that it works with several different groups and organizations to address the problem of controlling the lamprey populations. I think it was a smart idea by the U.S Fish and Wildlife Service because it opens up room for several different opinions on the issue which can allow for different ideas that may not have been thought of by just one group, it could also lead to the further development of an idea already in place which could make it more effective.
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