Hitting Lampreys where it hurts

Scientists are looking for new ways to control parasitic sea lampreys in the Great Lakes, and two new approaches hit them where it hurts.

First, as reported in the Washington Post, scientists are turning to the wholesale sterilization of males to control spawning populations on the Saint Mary's river.

But perhaps the strangest and most promising tactic in this battle is a ritual that smacks of science fiction and is carried out every summer in a U.S. Geological Survey research station in Millersburg, Mich., on the shores of Lake Huron.

There, workers wearing astronaut-like protective suits feed as many as 1,200 male sea lampreys per day into a machine that gives them an automatically calibrated shot of chemicals to render them sterile.

The sterile males are then released into the St. Mary's River spawning area, where they compete with fertile males for mates. A female that mates with a sterile male will lay a nest of infertile eggs...

To be effective, the sterile males released in St. Mary's River must outnumber fertile males 4 to 1. So sea lampreys trapped throughout the Great Lakes region are shipped on trucks to the USGS's Hammond Bay station, with 25,000 to 40,000 sterilized each summer.

Another group of scientists is developing a way to lure lampreys to their doom with scents that are irresistible to lampreys. As reported in ESPN (of all places),

Peter Sorensen, professor of fisheries, wildlife and conservation biology, said that he and a team of researchers identified and synthesized a chemical, known as a pheromone, that is emitted by juvenile lampreys in streams to attract the adults for spawning.

The synthetic form of the lamprey pheromone can attract the adults to places where they could be captured — and then killed or sterilized, he said. The attractant also could be used on streams blocked by small dams where the lampreys could not spawn, he said.

_______________________________________________________________________________________

Sponsored by:

      

_______________________________________________________________________________________

Comments

[direfloyd]

I like the sterile overpopulation method. Funny, but sounds like it may just work!