STURGEON BAY (NBC 26) — On Friday, U.S Fish and Wildlife treated Bear Creek with a pesticide meant to kill Sea Lamprey larvae and reduce the invasive species population in Lake Michigan.
- Fish and Wildlife monitored the lampricide spread all day Friday.
- The lampricide kills Sea Lamprey in the stream before they can make it back to the lake.
- Sea Lamprey are an invasive species that came into the Great Lakes from the ocean in the mid 1800s.
(The following is a transcription of the full broadcast story)
For two decades, Sara Ruiter has been protecting great lakes fish as a fish biologist with U.S Fish and Wildlife.
“Everyday is new, you never know what you’re going to run into," she says. "It’s just exciting."
She specifies in controlling Sea Lamprey population.
“Most people are familiar with it because it has this sucking disk mouth that looks very scary," she says.
Sea Lamprey are an oceanic invasive species that made their way to the Great Lakes via shipping canals in the mid-1800s.
“A Sea Lamprey can consume about 40 pounds of fish in their lifetime," Ruiter says.
Fish in the great lakes are not adapted to survive the parasite, so the Lamprey invasion devastated fish populations.
Watch the lampricide in action:
Since the late 1950s, Fish and Wildlife have treated the Great Lakes system with a pesticide designed to kill Sea Lamprey larvae.
They slowly drip the pesticide, known as a lampricide, into connecting streams.
“Their Larvae live in the stream, then when they grow up they go out to the Great Lakes, feed, and then come back in and spawn," Ruiter says.
Ruiter says the impact on aquatic habitat is minimal, and they continuously monitor water quality and the quantity of pesticide throughout the process.
According to the Great Lakes Fishery Commission, this system has reduced Sea Lamprey populations by 90%,
“You have commercial fishing, sport fishing, all that kind of stuff that happens in the great lakes and without sea lamprey control, a lot of that would not be possible," Ruiter says.
