Tracking a nuisance
Study to shed new light on lamprey distribution
By DENNIS APRILL, Outdoors Columnist
Attention anglers, non-anglers, anyone who enjoys Lake Champlain: The Lake Champlain Sea Grant Program wants your sea lampreys — yes, those eel-like parasites — to provide data for a major study of lamprey migration and distribution in the big lake.
Mark Malchoff is a researcher who is stationed at Plattsburgh State University. He says the first stage of the study has already started: "Researchers led by Dr. Ellen Marsden of the University of Vermont captured and marked 2631 lampreys last fall using either electric shocking or in nets. The lampreys were tagged with a coded 1/8-inch long wire, each individually marked. The wire is forced into the lamprey and can’t be seen by humans." Lampreys marked were in the transformer stage of development just prior to leaving their birth streams where they remained for 3-5 years after hatching. When these lampreys travel down stream and into Champlain, they enter the free-swimming adult stage of their lives, the stage they are most damaging to sport fish like Atlantic salmon and lake trout. In recent years, they have also attacked bass, pike and walleye.
The rivers from which the lampreys were tagged were mostly in Vermont and Quebec. Lewis Creek, the stream scheduled for lampricide treatment last fall that was postponed due to low water levels and the threat of a lawsuit, produced the most lampreys (1182)followed by Quebec’s Pike river (580). Other tributaries where lampreys were captured were the Poultney, Winooski Rivers and Mallett’s Creek in Vermont and Mill Brook, the Saranac River and Putnam Creek on the New York side.
According to Malchoff, "Few data are available on the survival of transformers after out-migration, and little is known about movements of lamprey during the parasitic (adult) phase." Measurements will be taken after lamprey control starts and should show the effect of such treatments. The project, Malchoff adds, may lead to a better understanding of which tributaries contribute the most lampreys to the lake.
In the second phase this spring, anglers and non-anglers alike will be asked to turn in dead lampreys at selected locations. Researchers will be able to tell which of these creatures is marked by passing them through a scanning device.
Tagged lampreys will be checked and charted to get a read on their movement.
As of now, Marchoff says, there are no specific plans for collecting lampreys; those will come by spring. In the meantime, he plans to contact marinas, bait and tackle shops or others who live near the lake and are interested in helping with this study. An added incentive for lamprey donors is cash and fishing tackle prizes that will be given for the most lamprey returned and the lamprey returned that traveled the farthest. There will also be a random drawing for prizes.
The National Sea Grant Program began in 1966 as a partnership between the nation’s universities and National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA)to watch over our marine and Great Lakes resources. The Lake Champlain Sea Grant is possible because of, as we all remember, Vermont Senator Patrick Leahy’s inclusion of Lake Champlain as the continent’s sixth Great Lake in a senate bill. He lost that designation, but kept the funding part of the package in the bill.
In addition to Malchoff, there are numerous other specialists working with the Lake Champlain Sea Grant Program. For more information on the Sea Grant’s lamprey initiative, go to www. uvm.edu/snr/lamprey/or write Mark Malchoff, Lake Champlain Sea Grant, Hudson Hall, 101 Broad Street, Plattsburgh, NY 12901-2681