TORONTO –
The Binational Fisheries Commission of the Great Lakes has been spreading awareness about blood-sucking fish, which has been wreaking havoc on ecosystems for decades.
Marine lamprey, a snake-like fish that has more than 100 teeth and a suction cup that it uses to catch and penetrate the scales of other fish. According to Fisheries and Oceans Canada, each lamprey can kill up to 20 pounds of fish in 12 to 18 months, and only 1 in seven fish survive their attacks.
“They can do incredible damage,” Mark Gadden of the Great Lakes Commission told CTV’s Your Morning on Monday.
“There are a lot of succulent fish in the Great Lakes that these lampreys like to eat, and because nothing keeps them under control, this is the perfect storm of invasion,” he said.
Sea lampreys made their way to North America through shipping canals in the Atlantic more than a century ago, causing severe damage in the 1950s and early 1960s, which led to the collapse of fishing in the Great Lakes and nearly destroyed the ecosystem. . The invasion of sea lampreys caused a 98% drop in lake trout at the time, leading to the creation of the Great Lakes Fisheries Commission.
The Great Lakes commercial, recreational and tribal fisheries together have created more than 75,000 jobs in industry worth $ 7 billion a year, according to the Great Lakes Fisheries Commission.
While people don’t have to worry about being attacked by any of these bloodsuckers, Gaden says it’s important to recognize the damage they can do to ecosystems.
“People need to know that destructive invasive species have caused incredible damage to fisheries. “They’re like a coil, and if you let go of all the control, they’ll come back,” Gaden said.
The female lamprey can lay 50,000 to 100,000 eggs. When the eggs turn into larvae, they will eat anything that comes his way for three to four years, until it grows into a mature predator with jagged teeth.
Fortunately, Gaden says methods have been developed to eradicate this invasive species, which has reduced 95 percent of the lamprey population in the Great Lakes. The two most effective ways to control these parasites include building dams to block species from reproducing and using pesticides. Lampricides are chemical compounds dumped in a pond to attack sea lampreys directly at the larval stage.
In its 2017 budget, the Canadian government outlined $ 8.7 million to control sea lampreys and fund research to better understand them.
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