The vampire fish is reportedly terrorizing fishermen and tourists in the Great Lakes after a pandemic disrupted population control of the species. According to Fox News, during the COVID-19 pandemic, the population of sea lampreys, eel-like parasitic fish that are endemic to the Northern Hemisphere but considered invasive in the Great Lakes, briefly increased. Since then, officials have been working to eradicate the excess lamprey.
The Great Lakes Fishery Commission, a bi-national organization composed of wildlife experts from the United States and Canada, took action to protect Lake Superior, Michigan, Huron, Erie, and Ontario.
According to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, unlike “bony” fish such as trout, cod and herring, lampreys lack scales, fins and gill covers. Like sharks, their skeletons are made of cartilage. They breathe through a characteristic row of seven pairs of tiny gill openings located behind their mouths and eyes.
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But the anatomical feature that makes the sea lamprey an effective killer of lake trout and other bony fish is its disk-shaped suction mouth with ring-shaped sharp horned teeth that it uses to latch on to the hapless fish. The lamprey then uses its rough tongue to pluck off the flesh of the fish to feed on the blood and bodily fluids of its host. One lamprey kills about 40 pounds of fish each year.
Sea lampreys entered the Great Lakes in the 1830s through the Welland Canal, which connects Lakes Ontario and Erie and forms a key part of the St. John’s Seaway. Lawrence. Within ten years, they gained access to all five Great Lakes, where they quickly began fishing for the lakes’ commercially important fish, including trout, whitefish, bass, and sturgeon. Within a century, the trout fishery collapsed, largely due to the uncontrolled spread of lampreys.
Today, the Great Lakes Fisheries Commission coordinates the control of sea lampreys in the lakes by the US Fish and Wildlife Service and Fisheries and Oceans Canada. Field biologists build barriers and traps in the streams that feed the lakes to prevent lampreys from moving upstream and apply special chemicals, called lampricides, that target lamprey larvae but are harmless to other aquatic creatures.
