TURNING SEA LAMPREYS INTO TV STARS

Sea lampreys are coming to a television station near you! Pete Mathiesen and Jeff Breitenstein, from North American Media Group, an independent filming company attached to Versus Television, are filming various activities of the Sea Lamprey Management Program for an upcoming TV special, likely in December 2010. The film crew is creating four 22-minute shows about invasive species in the Great Lakes and their species of choice are sea lampreys, round gobys, asian carp, and zebra/quagga mussels; they chose to do the show on sea lampreys first. Staff was both interviewed and filmed conducting adult trapping activities, electrofishing for larval sea lampreys using backpack gear, sterilizing adult male lampreys at the sterilization facility near Rogers City, Mich., conducting a TFM lampricide treatment on Albany Creek (Lake Huron), and most recently, treating specific areas with granular Bayluscide on the St. Marys River with a newly designed aquatic pesticide application boat. The TV special will highlight the success of the management program and emphasize the dedication of the people and the use of state-of-the-art technologies to control sea lampreys in the Great Lakes.
The Service’s sea lamprey management program continues to work closely with partners to control populations of sea lampreys in tributaries of the Great Lakes to protect the fishery and related economic activities in the basin (an estimated annual benefit of $7-8 billion/year to the region). The Service delivers a program of integrated sea lamprey control in U.S. waters of the Great Lakes as a contracted agent of the Great Lakes Fishery Commission.
Michael Fodale
R3-Marquette Bio Station