Great Lakes Fishing News for week of 7-28-97



`Week of July 28, 1997 --->`

Federal funding to combat sea lampreys and other nuisance species in the Great Lakes will be increasing in 1998.
A Senate appropriations subcommittee has approved $6 million for the Great Lakes Environmental Research Laboratory to study zebra mussels, Eurasian ruffe and other threats to the lakes' ecology.
The proposed 1998 funding for the Ann Arbor, Michigan -based agency represents an $800,000 increase over its current budget.
The Senate Appropriations Subcommittee for Commerce, Justice and State also has approved $8.54 million to fund the Great Lakes Fishery Commission, which oversees the sea lamprey control program.
The subcommittee's funding recommendation must be approved by the Senate Appropriations Committee, the full Senate and a House-Senate conference committee.
Sea lampreys run up rivers to spawn, much like salmon. The male and female usually form a monogamous pair that mate, lay and fertilize the eggs and then die. The juvenile lampreys burrow into the muck of the river bottom after hatching and live there for about seven years before migrating downriver and spending a year as parasitic predators on fish.

Learn more about Sea Lamprey and the Great Lakes at GLIN
Sea Lamprey as a Delicacy?

Sea Lamprey shown here attached to a rainbow trout photo courtesy GLFC
Ironically, it turned out lampreys were as sensitive to pollution as trout, and as people cleaned up rivers around the Great Lakes they gave the lampreys new spawning grounds. The biggest was the St. Marys, which connects lakes Superior and Huron.
The budget recommendation is likely to be approved because it is the same amount recommended by a House subcommittee and by the president's proposed 1998 budget, according to Marc Gaden, communications officer for the Great Lakes Fishery Commission.
"The subcommittee's approval is the most important hurdle for us," Gaden said.
The commission is funded both by the federal government and the Canadian government, which contributed $4.2 million to the sea lamprey program this year, Gaden said. The program's total budget is about $12.3 million, he said.
In June, Michigan Gov. John Engler challenged the federal government, Canada and other Great Lakes states to match his $1 million commitment to attack the 350,000 new lampreys entering Lake Huron every year.
Salmon-a-rama Winner

An electronic wall or dispersal barrier has been proposed for the Illinois Waterway system as a means of preventing the expansion of gobies into watersheds like the Mississippi River basin and beyond.
Specifically, the proposed barrier is two electrical walls 0.4 km apart, to be installed at an appropriate site in the USACE owned Chicago Ship & Sanitary Canal.
This barrier, which has proven safe and effective , would be installed in the lower 3-5ft of the water column so as not to impede barge or recreational boat traffic.
Gobies are known to inhabit the bottom or near bottom of the water systems and as they approach the barrier they will become increasingly more uncomfortable-encouraging them to turn sideways and ultimately move from the first barrier.
If they penetrate the first barrier 0.4km downstream and the same scenario would play out again.
To learn more about exotics visit the MN Sea Grant Field Guide To Exotic Species on the Great Lakes, or play an Exotics Species Slide Show from USEPA

Goby have shown a rapid range of expansion through the Great Lakes.

The annual cost for operating these barriers are very inexpensive, $4-5,000. The entire project, including design, research for a final site, installation and monitoring is estimated at $590,000.
On Friday, July 25, 1997, as part of a funding package for 'zebra mussel research' the Senate provided $2.5 million, an increase of $500,000 over FY1997 funding and above the Great Lakes Task Force request. Senate committee staff indicated that this level is intended to include funding for the dispersal barrier demonstration project at the Chicago Shipping and Sanitary Canal.
The House report also specifies funding for the Dispersal Barrier Demonstration at $500,000 included with zebra mussel research presumed to be at the President's request level of $2 million.
Contingency plans are presently being drawn up for gobies moving successfully beyond the two barriers.

Lake Sturgeon traveled over 500 miles

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