Under the Canopy
On Outdoor Journal Radio's Under the Canopy podcast, former Minister of Natural Resources, Jerry Ouellette takes you along on the journey to see the places and meet the people that will help you find your outdoor passion and help you live a life close to nature and Under The Canopy.
Under the Canopy
Episode 90: The 70-Year Battle to Save Great Lakes Fisheries
The fate of North America's most valuable freshwater system rests in the hands of dedicated scientists working across political boundaries. Greg McClinchey from the Great Lakes Fishery Commission returns to Under the Canopy to reveal the fascinating story of how this binational organization has battled invasive sea lamprey for nearly 70 years while coordinating fisheries management across multiple jurisdictions.
Greg reveals the remarkable impact these parasitic invaders have had on Great Lakes ecosystems. Each sea lamprey consumes approximately 40 pounds of fish during its lifetime, while females produce around 100,000 eggs. Left unchecked for just 3-5 years, these invaders would collapse fish stocks throughout the basin. Through dedicated control efforts using targeted lampricides in tributary streams, the Commission has reduced lamprey populations by about 90% from their peak.
The conversation takes unexpected turns, including the surprising story of how lamprey from the Great Lakes became part of a royal pie for Queen Elizabeth II's Golden Jubilee when lamprey couldn't be harvested from their native English waters due to conservation concerns. While European lamprey are considered delicacies, Greg explains why Great Lakes lamprey are unsafe for human consumption due to accumulated heavy metals.
We explore cutting-edge science initiatives like the Great Lakes Acoustic Telemetry Observation System (GLATOS), which tracks fish movements throughout the lakes, and the potential for mass-marking hatchery fish. Most impressively, Greg shares news that lake trout populations in Lake Superior have been fully restored – a landmark conservation achievement after decades of work.
What stands out most is how this international organization maintains unanimous, science-based decision-making even during periods of political tension between the U.S. and Canada. The Great Lakes Fishery Commission stands as a model for how shared commitment to natural resources can transcend politics to achieve remarkable conservation outcomes.
How did a small-town sheet metal mechanic come to build one of Canada's most iconic fishing lodges? I'm your host, steve Nitzwicky, and you'll find out about that and a whole lot more on the Outdoor Journal Radio Network's newest podcast, diaries of a Lodge Owner. But this podcast will be more than that. Every week on Diaries of a Lodge Owner, I'm going to introduce you to a ton of great people, share their stories of our trials, tribulations and inspirations, learn and have plenty of laughs along the way.
Speaker 2:Meanwhile we're sitting there bobbing along trying to figure out how to catch a bass and we both decided one day we were going to be on television doing a fishing show.
Speaker 1:My hands get sore a little bit when I'm reeling in all those bass in the summertime, but that's might be for more fishing than it was punching you so confidently you said hey, pat, have you ever eaten a drum? Find Diaries of a Lodge Owner now on Spotify, apple podcasts or wherever you get your podcast.
Speaker 5:As the world gets louder and louder, the lessons of our natural world become harder and harder to hear, but they are still available to those who know where to listen. But they are still available to those who know where to listen. I'm Jerry Ouellette and I was honoured to serve as Ontario's Minister of Natural Resources. However, my journey into the woods didn't come from politics. Rather, it came from my time in the bush and a mushroom. In 2015, I was introduced to the birch-hungry fungus known as chaga, a tree conch with centuries of medicinal applications used by Indigenous peoples all over the globe. After nearly a decade of harvest, use, testimonials and research, my skepticism has faded to obsession and I now spend my life dedicated to improving the lives of others through natural means. But that's not what the show is about. My pursuit of this strange mushroom and my passion for the outdoors has brought me to the places and around the people that are shaped by our natural world. On Outdoor Journal Radio's Under the Canopy podcast, I'm going to take you along with me to see the places, meet the people that will help you find your outdoor passion and help you live a life close to nature and under the canopy. So join me today for another great episode and hopefully we can inspire a few more people to live their lives under the canopy people to live their lives under the canopy Well, as always. We thank our guests, both in Canada, around the world, in the States and everywhere else, and should anybody have, at any time, any questions or comments or suggestions for shows or ideas, let us know. We'd be more than happy to see what we can do about getting them on.
Speaker 5:It sometimes takes a bit of time to try and get them on, but it's okay, and I got to tell you again today. It's that time of the year here where we are and it's a little bit cold and snowy out there still, and the maple syrup or the maple sap is still running. So we're out checking pails and making sure that everything's okay. But it looks like we got about another week of sap running with the way the temperatures are and after that it'd be hard to say for sure because we've only can see weather for about 10 days and it looks like we got some cold snaps coming in that'll send the sap down to the roots and back up again. But today we have a guest who's coming back with us again Greg from the Great Lakes Fisheries Commission. Welcome back, greg.
Speaker 4:Thank you very much, Jerry. It's great to be here.
Speaker 5:Yeah, it was a pleasure Last time. You know quite a few responses regarding our discussions last time and I think we want to talk about a few other things and I got to tell you I saw the booth at the Toronto Sportsman Show and we were at the Sportsman Show and I reached out to the individuals there but I didn't really realize that was the Great Lakes Fisheries Commission. That was actually there managing the booth or running that booth talking about lamprey eels again.
Speaker 4:Yeah, we actually do.
Speaker 4:The commission itself does a fair bit of public outreach and education and the basic reason for that is simply because so much of what we do is dependent on public support.
Speaker 4:We have to make sure that people broadly not just anglers, not just people who use the lakes, but people broadly who live throughout the basin understand the importance of the work that's being done and the impact. So we're always very happy to have members of the public approach us. Certainly, whether you know, if you come across, for example, a treatment in process, come on up. There's typically folks streamside ready to have those conversations and to answer any questions that might be there. We do outreach with, as you mentioned, things like the Sportsman Show and other places where people gather who have an interest in the lakes and then, you know, in schools and with scout groups and youth groups throughout the basin. We try and make sure that not just adults but that our younger folks, our next generation of anglers and lake users, are aware of the, you know, the importance of the Great Lakes and the tremendous work and the networks that go into place to keep those Great Lakes functioning and sustainable and healthy for many years to come.
Speaker 5:Yeah, greg, tell us when. Actually do they normally put the lamprocyte in the streams and you'll see those vehicles? Now, I think it's the vehicles, or what are they. I can't remember because I've seen the vehicles at the roadside with individuals there, and are they ministerial trucks? Or are they Great Lakes Fisheries Commission trucks?
Speaker 4:Now they're typically branded with the Great Lakes Fisheries Commission logo as well as the US Fish and Wildlife Service or Department of Fisheries and Oceans, depending on where the troops are deployed. So, as I think I mentioned when we last spoke, we do a lot of work with our partners. We have contracts with groups like the US Fish and Wildlife Service and, in Canada, with the Department of Fisheries and Oceans, to help do this work throughout the basin. So, depending on who you're or where you are and who you're talking to, the branding for all three organizations, or at least two of them, will be on the trucks.
Speaker 5:Now, when the jurisdictions are how shall I say this in conflict between Canada and the States. Now, you know, with the tariffs and all that work, like the Great Lakes Commission, still continues on, does it not? And everybody realizes that the benefit is for both of us and not just a singular benefit to any one particular jurisdiction.
Speaker 4:Yeah, indeed, the work continues and I would argue that the work actually I mean it's important all the time, but I actually think it takes on an added air of importance. The Great Lakes Fishery Commission has been around for 70 years and if you look back over that time, there have been several examples where, you know, the occupant of the White House and the Prime Minister of Canada maybe didn't see eye to eye on issues. There have been times when the national relationship has been strained or whatever, and I think it's at those times when our commission and groups like ours take on this added importance, because it's our job to make sure that, regardless of what's happening nationally and what other issues might be on the table or up for discussion or taking up lots of space on the front pages throughout the two countries, we want to make sure that the Great Lakes remain. On that, canadian Prime Minister Pierre Trudeau and US President Richard Nixon didn't always see eye to eye, but despite that, despite maybe some frictions and personality frictions between those two men, every decision that was taken by the Great Lakes Fishery Commission during that time period when those two men were in office, every single one of them was unanimous.
Speaker 4:So you know, which is a testament to the work of the commission, but it's also a really good indicator that we don't do politics right. That's not the job of the commission. We're a science-based organization. We work broadly across the basin with partners of all stripes and all shapes and sizes and interests, and as long as we can come together. You know, in the common understanding that the Great Lakes need to be protected and we need to do what's best for the lakes and the fisheries within the lakes, we've been able to bridge that gap, if I can say it, and make sure that the Great Lakes remain on the front burner, no matter what's happening nationally.
Speaker 4:Oh, that's good so when typically does the lamperside get put in the streams? Usually right about now. So our season now. Obviously things are dependent on weather. As many of us as we look out our windows. Today, I've got a bit of an ice storm coming down where I am right now. We're all reminded that winter hasn't quite left us yet, and even I was up on Lake Huron over the weekend and just the last remnants of the ice are starting to finally dissipate from the shoreline. So once those conditions are such that we can get crews out and we can start to do our work, typically between April and, say, october, but sometimes a year like this one, things go a little bit later into April, maybe mid-April or even the end of April, depending on the year, and would carry through into the fall.
Speaker 5:So the ice needs to be out first. Is that one of the conditions Is that when the lamprey start to come up to spawn.
Speaker 4:Well, yeah, there's a number of conditions. Certainly, as long as winter has still got us, it's maybe a little early, but yeah, we need to get into the streams. Of course we don't treat lamprey in the lakes themselves. Lamprey typically live their formative years and they're breeding in the freshwater rivers and tributaries that feed into the Great Lakes, just like they would. They're actually native to the Atlantic Ocean, so in the ocean environment they do the same thing. They live in the saltwater and feed in the saltwater, but live formative, their formative years and breed in the rivers. Likewise, in the Great Lakes and that's where we can get them we apply a lamperside compound to those streams on a specific schedule. We have to make sure that the flow rates are appropriate, that the pH and the alkalinity fall in at a certain level and of course we want to make sure that we're getting lamprey when they come into those spaces to breed.
Speaker 4:Now we're not just getting incoming lamprey ones that are coming in to breed, but lamprey have a multi-year life cycle, so they tend to live in those rivers depending on where they are. There's factors like water temperature that can shape how long they live in their larval phase and so on. But let's just say. For example, we've identified a stream A and we know that lamprey live there in their formative years, in their larval phase, for say, three years. Then, as long as we treat that stream once every three years, we wipe out, we eradicate the populations before they can move out into the lake. So it's a pretty complex process and I don't pretend to be a scientist I think I said that to you when we last spoke but fortunately the Fishery Commission has a lot of scientists that work with us and help to guide these things. But we make sure that we hit those streams on a regular basis so that there's no population left to move out into the lakes to do their damage as they move into what we call their parasitic phase.
Speaker 5:Right Now, the lamperside doesn't affect any of the other eels that are found, whether it's the American eel, or I think there's a stream eel as well, correct?
Speaker 4:So there are a couple of things. So the lampricide is a compound that we put in the water and basically it affects lamprey. And I mean there are certain species, there is bykill, there is some. It's very, very limited. There's a species of salamander, for example, that doesn't process the chemical well. So that's why it's done in such a specific and targeted way. But in essence what this compound is is it's a compound that's introduced that the lamprey have never evolved the ability to metabolize. So if you put a lamprey and a lake trout in a jar and you put lampricide in, the lake trout will survive and the lamprey will not. But certainly there are implications for some other species very few, but for some.
Speaker 4:And that's part of our science program is designed to make sure that we apply lampricide at a very specific level.
Speaker 4:We don't want to, you know we basically our objective is to apply it at as low a level as is possible that we get the kill of sea lamprey, of the invasive sea lamprey, and minimal damage to any other susceptible species as possible, in addition to the ecological implications that we're trying to minimize. We also, you know, lamprocyte is expensive. We don't want to be putting a compound into the waterways, one for cost purposes, but just even though it's been proven safe. We want to make sure that we minimize any impact that it would have on the environment. Now I will say that our testing and our science program over the last 60 or 70, almost 70 years would indicate that it doesn't accumulate in the environment. In fact, it's what we call photosensitive, which means that when exposed to sunlight for about five or six hours, it breaks down into its inert components and becomes completely undetectable. So it's not dissipating, it's not becoming diluted, it's simply breaking down in its component parts and presents no additional risk to the environment.
Speaker 5:So you mentioned, is there a specific strain of salamander that's susceptible?
Speaker 4:Yeah, well, I think any of the ancient fish or ancient species of amphibians do have. There's some and I'm talking irritation, I'm talking about some of the implications there. So, as I said, our science program works very hard to make sure that we're not having that kind of negative impact on other species and other. There are, of course, as you pointed out, there are some endemic native lamprey species that we want to make sure remain. So that's all factored into our treatment schedule and how we do things to again minimize and it's easy to say, you know, well, then you know some may say, well then we want to make sure we don't do this, then Like let's leave it, so that we're not having an impact on some of those other native species.
Speaker 4:The challenge we have and this is the challenge with invasive species broadly that if we do nothing, you know the invasive species will do their worst. And in the case of lamprey, we have a situation where if we were to not treat sea lamprey, the invasive sea lamprey, for between three and five years, we would see the collapse of fish stocks in the Great Lakes. So you know it, it, it again, the, the lamprey treatment process and the and the and the program that we run is is very safe. It's proven that time and time again over 70 years of of of pretty aggressive science. But we also want to make sure that that that we, we completely minimize that and we and we have as little impact on the other species as possible. But, considering the alternative, doing nothing would not be an option.
Speaker 5:So for Greg, for 70 years they've been working on these issues like this. Now I'm not sure how long they've been dealing with land prey, but what's the impact been? How come they haven't eradicated the lamprey eel if it's being so successful or not?
Speaker 4:So let me give first. The first lamprey was seen in the Great Lakes just over a century ago, but 104 or 5 years ago the first one was seen. And then, of course, our tracking data from then on, and it's become much more precise since those very early days. But we saw fish populations plummet. You can actually track on a graph. As the lamprey gained prominence in each of the lakes, the fish populations plummeted in a direct correlation to that. So they've been around for about a century. They were hugely damaging to the fish populations and the ecosystems in the 20s, 30s, 40s and even into the 50s.
Speaker 4:It was really desperation that drove the governments of the day, the state there are eight states the province of Ontario and two federal governments to finally, out of desperation, come together and strike the treaty that we operate under today, that basically one of our key pillars was to eliminate sea lamprey. And you ask why we haven't eliminated them. Well, I'd point out that in 1954, when the Fishery Commission or our treaty was first brought forward, we didn't actually have lamperside yet. We didn't know at that point how to control sea lamprey and something of that scope had never been done before. In fact, even today our program is the only example of a marine vertebrate being held or being controlled, rather at an ecosystem-wide basis in the world. It's just something that's very hard to do and a general rule of thumb with any invasive species and people who you know whether you're working with zebra mussels or viral hemorrhagic septicemia or round goby or any of the 186 species of invasives that live in the great lakes they will tell you that it is much, much easier to control, or rather to prevent a species from becoming established, than it is to control or even eliminate it once it has become established.
Speaker 4:So, as an example of that, a number of years we detected evidence of active breeding of grass carp in Lake Erie right, which would be a very, very bad thing to do If you're a duck hunter, if you're someone who makes use of that nearshore area or you know, as we all like to see a healthy ecosystem that involves that nearshore area, having grass carp become established in the Great Lakes would just be a cataclysmic disaster, almost on the scale of sea lamp rate. So a number of years ago, when we found that the US Congress began to fund the Fishery Commission to the tune of about a million dollars a year, and we now have boats on the water and we are actively removing grass carp species or grass carp individuals from Lake Erie. We're doing testing in the adjacent lakes and in Lake Erie to make sure there hasn't been that breach of containment and expansion of the species. And basically our science shows that if we can remove about I think it's 330 individuals from the ecosystem every year, that species will never become established, basically the fertile ones. I mean there are some infertile ones in the lakes and they've never caused a major problem. But the fertile ones will never find each other and hence the species, while present, will never become established.
Speaker 4:So that really is a bit of a direct lesson that we've learned from things like lamprey, because now that they're here, I mean we've reduced their populations to about 90% below what they have been at their height. But we're really looking at a situation where as we move further and further, kind of chasing that last lamprey, if you will, based on the current state of technology and our practices and so on, chasing that last lamprey becomes economically not viable. Now that's not to say we're throwing up our hands and saying you know, never, say never, but we do have to look at it and think you know we continue to explore options for better control, more targeted use of lamprey side, other supplemental barriers and techniques that can be used to control lamprey, other supplemental barriers and techniques that can be used to control lamprey, and the hope is one day down the road we might be in a position where we can eliminate lamprey from the Great Lakes, but we're simply not there yet.
Speaker 5:So are lamprey. After all these years that we're using the lamprey, are they becoming resistant to it as well? That's a great question.
Speaker 4:The Fishery Commission has a $10 million binational science program.
Speaker 4:That's one of our key pillars as well is to make sure that we have good science on which to base decisions, and there's been a lot of work done over the years on lampricide resistance Basically.
Speaker 4:You know, there's kind of a mixed bag on this. We're seeing that there is, you know, some very, very kind of maybe, but we're not really seeing anything that's alarming or that's kind of definitive that should be concerning to us. Now, for us, the driving force behind trying to reduce reliance on lampricide or become more targeted isn't, you know, that lamprey are becoming resistant, although if ever there were to really be signs of that, we'd have to be concerned pretty fast. The concern is that lampricide is quite expensive, and my background, my youth background, is in agriculture, and so you know, as I remember from those days, every farmer wants to use as little pesticide as possible, because there's an environmental implication in that case sometimes, but there's certainly a cost implication, and so we want to make sure that we target it, that you don't waste it and that it's not applied more than it needs to be done. So all those factors combine to make us kind of press for that efficiency. But at this point we haven't become especially concerned about lampreyside resistance.
Speaker 5:Interesting. So, yeah, one of the other things that I found interesting was that actually, lamprey eel is a pretty demand in-demand food in some jurisdictions around the world. Is that things that you've? I believe England was one of the key places.
Speaker 4:Yeah, you're absolutely right, lamprey. I was last year about mid last year I was attending a conference in Halifax and I had a gentleman from Portugal come up to me and he was so excited he was trying to convince me to let him take the two or three lamprey we had in the display case in the tank home with them, because they are so valuable in Portugal. They're considered a delicacy in places like Spain and Portugal and the United Kingdom but they're critically endangered in most of their native range so you can't actually fish them anymore. In fact there was an interesting or at least I think it's interesting story back during the Golden Jubilee I believe it was of the late Queen Elizabeth II. This story unfolded so there's a city in England called Gloucester that would. It has this tradition dating back to the Middle Ages where whenever there was a significant event for the sovereign right a birth or a coronation or a jubilee or whatever that they would present a sea lamprey pie to the sovereign. And to be clear, I think I have an image of a pie when somebody says pie, which is this nice little pastry, and you cut it into eight or you know eight or 10 pieces, let's not kid. Maybe six or eight pieces. But this pie is this huge puff pastry that's sculpted to look like a cathedral and it's made out of sea lamprey.
Speaker 4:But at the time, although it was the golden Jubilee, they were not able to fish sea lamprey in the area. So Gloucester was in a bit of a bind. They wanted to continue this ancient tradition but obviously couldn't do what they needed to do. So they gave us a call at the Fishery Commission and our current executive secretary happened to be on vacation in the United Kingdom just by happenstance at the time. So the commission fedexed some frozen lamprey over to him.
Speaker 4:It fedexed, I guess, quite easily, and he received it and then took it to the gloucester council and was presented. He presented them with the sea lamprey for their pie for the queen and in return they gave him a certificate declaring him the official purveyor of the sea lamprey for the city of gloucester. So it's all, lots of nobody does pomp and circumstance like the like the british, but gave him a certificate declaring him the official purveyor of the sea lamprey for the city of Gloucester. So it's all, lots of nobody does pomp and circumstance like the British. But that was a really kind of interesting story. And Mark, our executive secretary got to be a part of this ancient tradition dating back to the Middle Ages.
Speaker 5:Really Well. There's a market for individuals who are looking for Spain, England and Portugal.
Speaker 4:good thing, Because unfortunately, while sea lamprey in the saltwater oceans environment is a delicacy, regrettably because of some of the historical practices, particularly the industrial practices along in the Great Lakes, great Lakes sea lamprey, who feed at the top of the food chain and tend to concentrate you know they eat the big fish tend to contain unacceptable levels of heavy metals like mercury.
Speaker 4:So unfortunately well, unfortunately, I don't think sea lamprey to me, sea lamprey don't look particularly delicious, but perhaps that's just a personal choice. But it would not be advisable for people to eat sea lamprey from the Great Lakes because of that health risk that they present. Oh really, they're not. Even as a matter of fact, we've had a number of questions over the years asking you know, can they be used for pet food? Can they be you know any number of things? And the reality is no, they can't. Unfortunately. Because that particular although I know lots of work is going into cleaning up areas of concern in the Great Lakes and obviously considerable progress has been made we're not seeing the lakes that catch on fire or rivers that catch on fire, we're not seeing the kind of pollution and industrial contaminants that we once did, but unfortunately that legacy is still there and in this case means we can't eat sea lamprey.
Speaker 5:Oh, interesting. So, and it's not like some of the younger ones are well, hmm, no, it really it hits them all and it's mostly you know.
Speaker 4:I'll give you an example. So zebra mussels, I've often had people say, well, why couldn't we just, you know, eat them? There's an example out of Chicago where they have a fish which they've now. It's a carp and they've now rebranded as the kopi and their kind of unofficial motto has become if you can't beat them, eat them. And their plan is to kind of market kopi as a very desirable food fish and to basically eat their way through the problem. It's an interesting concept and certainly we are watching very closely to see how that works out over the longer term.
Speaker 4:But in the case of zebra mussels, that would never work. Or in the case of sea lamprey, that would never work. Because zebra mussels, for example, because they're filter feeders, they tend to concentrate things like botulism. So that's obviously not something that we want in the human food chain. And likewise with sea lamprey, because they eat the fish who have eaten the fish who have eaten the fish who have eaten the fish who have eaten the fish, and they also concentrate those heavy metals. So again, uh, just as a as kind of an outcome or a of the mechanism in which they get their food makes them not desirable or not not practical for human consumption, in the case of lamprey so what do you mean?
Speaker 5:a filter feeder?
Speaker 4:so, so, uh, uh, uh, a zebra mussel, they, they basically they suck all the water in, like. So they establish themselves in a place and they kind of suck in the water and filter it through and consume the materials that are in the water. And so what they do is they create these kind of zones and, over long story short, they basically find botulism and things like that and and concentrate it. It's again with sea lamprey. That's the challenge. If well, I'll tell you what. I'll give you the human example.
Speaker 4:So, uh, medical evidence would suggest that, uh, women who are pregnant are often given advice not to eat more than so many helpings of fish within a given period of time. And I'm not a doctor, I'm not giving that, that advice, I'm simply saying that you'll often get that advice from your doctor. And, again, it's because of those heavy metals that might be contained in fish or other pollutants and so on, that we just need to moderate that, particularly at a time when a developing baby is part of that equation. So you know, these things all work together and it basically speaks to the larger message why you know, and again I mentioned, progress is being made and that's great, but why we need to work so hard to you know, do better to do better than we have in the past with regards to the environmental legacy that is our Great Lakes, our great lakes.
Speaker 6:Back in 2016,. Frank and I had a vision to amass the single largest database of muskie angling education material anywhere in the world.
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Speaker 5:And now it's time for another testimonial for Chaga Health and Wellness. Okay, I'm here in Millbrook with Trevor, who had a great experience and wants to share it with us with the skin cream, the Chaga skin cream. Trevor, tell us what you went through and how much you used and go ahead.
Speaker 7:I've had eczema on my arm since I was a little kid and it's always been quite a rough patch there on my arm and no lotion seemed to ever get it so that it was smooth on my arm and no lotion seemed to ever get it so that it was smooth Right. But using the Chaga, probably for three weeks, it feels like normal skin now. Yeah, and how often did you put it on? I put it on maybe once every other day. I didn't remember to do it every day. Yeah, but once every other day, one time a day.
Speaker 5:Very good and you had great results.
Speaker 7:And now it feels like normal skin again. Very good, and you didn't try anything else, so you figure that's what. No, that worked, so I'm sticking with that.
Speaker 5:Very good. Well, thanks, trevor here in Millbrook, yeah, okay.
Speaker 1:Okay.
Speaker 5:We interrupt this program to bring you a special offer from Chaga Health Wellness program. To bring you a special offer from Chaga Health and Wellness. If you've listened this far and you're still wondering about this strange mushroom that I keep talking about and whether you would benefit from it or not, I may have something of interest to you. To thank you for listening to the show, I'm going to make trying Chaga that much easier by giving you a dollar off all our Chaga products at checkout. All you have to do is head over to our website, chagahealthandwellnesscom, place a few items in the cart and check out with the code CANOPY C-A-N-O-P-Y. If you're new to Chaga, I'd highly recommend the regular Chaga tea. This comes with 15 tea bags per package and each bag gives you around five or six cups of tea. Hey, thanks for listening Back to the episode. So, and I'm not familiar with sea lamprey at all, but I know that we have fish farms where people rear rainbow trout, for example. Is there a possibility of rearing lamprey eels in order to provide as a food source?
Speaker 4:Certainly we've never. We at the commission are highly focused on our mission to eliminate, or to control, eliminate and hopefully one day eradicate the species. The challenge is there are many challenges. One of the challenges is that they don't belong here. They don't interact with populations well. They eat voraciously and breed even more so.
Speaker 4:I mean, every sea lamprey will eat about 40 pounds of fish in its lifetime and every female will have about 100,000 eggs. So it's really just a species that doesn't belong here. It hasn't co-evolved with Great Lakes fish. They don't interact well. I mean, almost every encounter between a lamprey and a Great Lakes fish results in the death of the fish as opposed to in their native environment, where they might feed on a fish and then move along.
Speaker 4:That's partly because they've co-evolved and their behaviors are lined up. They belong in that environment. But it's also because ocean fish are bigger. If you have a sea lamprey that's you know what 18 inches long, that feeds on the side of a whale, it's probably not going to cause much harm. But if you have that same sea lamprey feed on the side of a lake trout, it will kill the lake trout. So we would never want to get into a situation where we're fostering the presence of this species that so clearly doesn't belong and has such clear and damaging implications for the Great Lakes environment broadly. It's certainly something that's been talked about, it's even been studied by some, but every time the answer comes back that that would just be a very, very bad idea.
Speaker 5:Interesting. So, Greg, tell us some of the other things that the Great Lakes Fisheries Commission works on. How does it manage fisheries, for example?
Speaker 4:Well, the interesting part is the Great Lakes Fishery Commission, I will say, doesn't manage fish, we manage the people who manage the fish or we help to manage them. So let me explain what that means. So, before our treaty came about, all of the jurisdictions along the Great Lakes and I mentioned there are eight Great Lakes states, as well as the province of Ontario, numerous tribal and First Nations interests and private interests and rights holders and those kinds of things Everybody was trying to do their thing on the Great Lakes but there was no coordination. So you know, the state of Wisconsin would set a total allowable catch for X with regards to fishing licenses, and usually, you know, in those days, a very long time ago, decades and decades ago, fishing licenses were given out based on how many people wanted to go fishing, not on how many fish there were in the water. In those days we'd have, I mentioned, if Wisconsin said it was going to take X, then you know its next door neighbor, michigan, would say, well, if those guys can take X, we can take X plus 10%. And then Ontario would say, well, if those guys can take X, we can take X plus 10%. And then Ontario would say, well, if Michigan and Wisconsin can take that, surely we can take that plus a little bit more too. And it became this race to the bottom and that's why you saw a really mismanaged or poorly managed fishery in those days, and I'm talking about decades ago Now.
Speaker 4:What happened when the Fishery Commission came along? We were given three specific mandate items, and we've already talked about the science, we've already talked about land freight control. But the third and sometimes I might suggest, the most important element although that depends on the day is this cross-border coordination mandate and what we were asked at the time and this was obviously long before me. I'm speaking, you know, kind of colloquially as the organization. We were asked to bring all of the people together who manage fisheries, all of the provincial and state regulators and DNRs and everybody that had a hand in managing the Great Lakes fishery, and to get them to coordinate their efforts and to think beyond their own piece of shoreline. So you know, for example, michigan borders four, great Lakes, ontario borders five or sorry borders four, not Lake Michigan. There are some geologists who claim, I think, scientifically speaking, that Lake Michigan and Lake Huron are part of the same lake, but for our discussion they're not. We don't want to get into that debate. So ontario borders for, michigan borders for.
Speaker 4:So what we've done is we've created this, this we call it the joint strategic plan of management for great lakes fisheries. And what we've done is we've created lake committees and and every state or the province who has shoreline on a particular lake then sits on the lake committee for that lake and those lake committees manage the lake, so they and the fishery, so they would jointly come together and set priorities. They would talk about environmental things that they need to do, you know, when appropriate, total allowable catch limits, fisheries regulations, like all of the things that go into managing that fishery, and it it's all facilitated by the Great Lakes Fishery Commission process. We, you know, we don't take away their responsibility. It's still there. You know, the state of New York has jurisdiction for fishing in the Great Lakes on their shores, as does Ontario and so on. So what we do is we bring them together, we provide them with the scientific information that they need to make informed, logical, thoughtful decisions, and we set up a process where it's not about getting just what I want. It's about getting what I want by ensuring that everybody gets what they want. It's more of a sticks in a bundle approach that has proven really effective over the years and has really taken root. So these lake committees now function. They meet regularly and they discuss and enact priorities for their lakes and then they come together broadly to talk about the lake system, which, again, these things simply never happened before the Great Lakes Fishery Commission and that process came along. It's worth noting that that entire process is consensus-based and voluntary. No state or the province has to participate.
Speaker 4:But I think over the years they've all come to understand that it really is a positive, strong way of managing these incredible resources and it's yielded results that I'm not sure if I mentioned last time we spoke in November of 2024. So just late last year only three or four months ago, I guess four or five months ago now we were able to announce that lake trout populations in Lake Superior have been fully restored. Oh really, it really is. It's an amazing announcement. It's one that unfortunately didn't get as much press as we might like to have seen it get.
Speaker 4:But when you think about this day and age, we don't often recognize that things are going so well. But to have that species be fully restored in the lake is incredible. It's a direct result of the hard work that's happening with the lake is incredible. It's a direct result of the hard work that's happening with the lake committees and you know we can even look at. You know, go to the other end of the system, go down to Lake Erie and you see, or near the other end, you see that Lake Erie now has a fully sustainable marine, certified sustainable fishery. So, while Lake Erie is the most productive biologically speaking of the lakes, it has the largest biological output, like the largest catch of any of the lakes, but it's being done in a way that is completely sustainable. So these are all things that have come about over the last number of decades really since the 80s basically and are a consequence of that committee structure that's worked so well.
Speaker 5:Very good. So what about other lakes for lake trout restoration?
Speaker 4:There's still certainly work to be done in some of the other lakes. We continue to work that way and look forward to the day when we can make the announcement in all of the lakes and for all of the species of fish that are important to us, but we're simply not there yet.
Speaker 5:Right, so tell us then about this. What is it? The GLATOS network and some of the background on that.
Speaker 4:Yeah, actually I'm really glad you asked that. So GLADOS is short for let's see if I get this right the Great Lakes Acoustic Telemetry Observation System, and basically over the last number of years and it's really grown tremendously. If you go on, there's actually a GLADOS website. If you could link to it off of our page, glfcorg. If you look up GLADOS G-L-A-T-O-S on our page, you'll find that.
Speaker 4:And what's happened is, over the years, scientists have been implanting Great Lakes fish with transmitters that are, I guess, kind of like the GPS on your car, and then there are receivers that are throughout the lakes and basically we can track fish movement through this network of receivers. And so it's kind of this network of receivers, and so it's a kind of this network of researchers who work together. They use that acoustic telemetry to better understand fish behavior and the ecology in the lakes, and then that information is it's an example of information that would be made available to fish managers. So, for example, if GLaDOS reveals that you know there's a reduction in fish populations in, you know, lake Ontario, then fish managers can deal with that accordingly and whether that's through the use of hatchery resources or reduced allowable catches and so on.
Speaker 4:But it really is this remarkable network of researchers that have come together to basically track individual fish, and it's I mean, obviously we don't have every single fish in the lake that the lakes tagged, but what we have is this kind of really large and growing representative sample of what there is. So it's a really it's an incredibly interesting project that's been going on. It's binational right, so it doesn't again we operate in this border-blind way, and it's really a way to allow us to collaboratively work and to understand fish behaviors in relation to Great Lakes ecology and what's happening beneath the water. There's a lot happening under the water, and this is just one of those examples where we're trying to understand it better. The listening devices happen 24 hours a day, 12 months out of the year, so they give us a really great baseline on what's happening there.
Speaker 5:So, with these devices, is it something that you can determine patterns for? Is it something that you can determine patterns for? Because I know I ran a charter boat back in the 80s on Lake Ontario and when there was a cool southern breeze, very slow you would get a buildup of warm water on the north side of Lake Ontario. So is this something that you can determine patterns like that for fishing reasons, so that you can see that the fish are locating into this area for these reasons? So what?
Speaker 4:we wouldn't use it for would be for fish harvesting purposes. Right, it's not something that's made available to tell anglers, hey, go here, this is where the fish are. But basically it's a tool that would be made available to fisheries managers to see populations, and I'll give you a concrete example of why that would be important. So we want to control sea lamprey. Sea lamprey feed on fish. So while we can't track individual sea lamprey, we can track its prey prey. So we know, for example, that if populations of lake trout begin to congregate in certain areas, that there's a better than average chance that we're going to see increased lamprey populations in those areas, because they're going where the food is right, they don't care about borders, they don't care about what lake they're in, they're going after food. And so we can then deploy our, so our sea lamprey control program. We work through this extended system of committees and other things like that that share that information and, over the course of a year, devise kind of what the strategy should be for next year's control season and then we can deploy sea lamprey control resources accordingly. We know that streams and tributaries provide, you know. We also have, you know, juvenile larval assessments and we track wounding rates and all of those kinds of things, but things like GLaDOS would help us to understand where fish populations are and hence being able to send control efforts that way. The other thing, and the biggest thing, is being able to direct hatchery resources right. We want to make sure that, as we're placing and we, the Fishery Commission, don't look after hatcheries, but certainly many of our partners do and we want to make sure, if you're increasing your output from a hatchery in a specific area or a specific lake, that you have some idea as the fish population that might be there, because you don't want to overload the habitat and you don't want to underutilize the habitat and the available food that would be there for fish going into the environment.
Speaker 4:It's also worth mentioning an interesting side note.
Speaker 4:We just had a bill reintroduced into the US Congress.
Speaker 4:It's spearheaded by Mr Hezinga and Mrs Dingell, who it's called a mass marking project, and it's a really, really cool project where they bring if it was to pass, it would be funded and we could deploy it on the Great Lakes and basically what it is is it's you set up these kind of trailers, come in, they set up these, troughs all of the fish going out of the hatchery into the water, would go through it and the machines would lop off a tiny fatty protuberance of the adipose fin on the back of a fish and it would lop that off and then it would insert a radio tag into the snout of the fish and all of these fish would then go out into the lakes and when they're caught, if an angler looks at it and says, oh, this fish doesn't have an adipose fin, when they you know, they chop off the fish's head, they send it in for analysis and we're able to track those fish and to really drill down on fish populations coming out of hatcheries whether or not we need to do more or less depending on what's happening under the water.
Speaker 4:So it's another really innovative example of something that can be done to look closely under the water to see what fish are doing.
Speaker 5:Interesting. So how many fish would you be talking about trying to do this process with?
Speaker 4:So again, the bill has not passed, it's just been introduced.
Speaker 4:And I'll say it's been introduced in previous Congresses but never passed, not because anyone opposed it, but I always say it's because it was probably, you know, priority number 11 on a list of top 10 and it just, it just hasn't gotten done.
Speaker 4:But but we're going to be hopeful, we're going to continue to press for its support and basically, these machines can do about 8 500 fish an hour and give or take and the the intention is is that it needs to do 100% of the fish coming out of a hatchery, because that way if you catch a fish that doesn't have an adipose fin, you absolutely know that it's a hatchery fish. But if you're only doing some of the fish coming out of hatcheries, then you don't know with certainty that it's a hatchery fish. If the fish has an adipose fin, that it's a hatchery fish, right, it might. It might, if the fish has an adipose fin, it might be a hatchery fish that didn't go through the system, or it might be a natural fish. So it's really one of those things we need to do, all or nothing.
Speaker 5:So what species of fish are released into the Great Lakes?
Speaker 4:Depends on the area, but I know there's a lot of work being done sturgeon lake trout. There's work being done with salmon. So it really it depends on the area, it depends on the state or the province, but they're basically the native fish populations of the Great Lakes that need a little bolstering and the province of Ontario and the states have long had stocking processes. In fact, back in those early days, back when the commission kind of first came about, one of the reasons for needing to control lamprey was they were the states and the province were dumping fish into the lakes and they were just feeding lamprey, basically because the lamprey populations were so out of control. Obviously, if there's efforts and tax dollars going into stocking fish in the Great Lakes, we want to make sure that they're used for legitimate recreational and commercial fishing opportunities.
Speaker 5:Right. So whereabouts are the work on sturgeon taking place?
Speaker 4:Can't give you a lot of examples on that. I know that there's kind of mixed work done throughout the basin. I can't name it for you off the top of my head.
Speaker 5:Okay, I just wondered. And are there species like the deepwater ciscos being looked at or not?
Speaker 4:There is some work because, of course, cisco, as you, as you I'm sure you know, used to be in the Great Lakes and one of the factors why they're not in the Great Lakes is because of sea lamp break, because of the out of control work.
Speaker 4:So there's, there's always, you know, the the Corrigonian research projects are are always looking at how to reintroduce some of these species. But again, that's where the science program is so important and sometimes when you talk to people they kind of roll their eyes and think, oh, science, it's not that exciting, but it really is the science that is facilitating. When you hear about lake trout in Lake Superior being fully restored, that science, that science forms the backbone of how those things happened. It's how we control sea lamprey. We had to first understand what makes a sea lamprey tick. You know what are its weaknesses so we could use those weaknesses against it. That's where we learned it couldn't metabolize this particular compound. So that science program, whether it's GLADOS, whether it's mass marking, whether it's straight out primary research, it's really, really important for some of the work that we're doing to manage the populations broadly, those fish managers and part of that strategic plan. They have to have that information.
Speaker 5:Very interesting. What about there's like smelt, smelt and things along those lines, and do you do any research or is there anything taking place? Because I can remember as a youth, in the teens, going down smelt fishing and the numbers are nowhere near and I always try to find out when and where smelt might be running to be able to take my sons out so they can get an experience of what it's like to go smelt fishing. But it's very difficult to find anymore and I don't know much or hear much about research about smelt.
Speaker 4:Yeah, so you and I maybe have the same vintage then, because I know it's actually typically had been about this time of year, maybe a little later than this, that you'd get into the smelt runs when I was a kid and so, yeah, I remember that too. You'd go out and you could just net them in, or even with buckets kind of thing. So the Fishery Commission's mandate is not kind of all encompassing, right. We have a science mandate, we have that lamprey control mandate and then that coordination mandate. So I don't want to leave anyone with the impression that we're kind of a one-stop shop.
Speaker 4:We certainly work to support our science program. You know people can apply for funding and we will often fund research. So a lot of that work. You know people can apply for funding and we we will often fund research. So a lot of that work. You know, as far as the what's being done with specific species is either being done by private interests or, in the case of the state and and provincial governments, so we can support certain scientific initiatives when it comes about. We even have some limited capacity to do primary research ourselves. I mean we have biological stations at Marquette and Ludington and so on. But a lot of that research that we do primarily is focused on lamprey control, the use of pheromones and all sorts of other things. But we don't necessarily get into that, the smelt stuff or any of that other kind of research elements ourselves, although we're enthusiastic and always open to ideas on how we can partner up.
Speaker 5:So Greg, does the Great Lakes Fisheries Commission do they do presentations or have seminars or like if a fishing club was interested in getting a presentation? Is that something that the commission provides or has information for?
Speaker 4:We certainly we try very hard to do as much as we can. We're limited, we're a pretty small but lean and lean organization but, as I mentioned earlier, I will often go to schools, I often speak at groups. We have a communications department that does outreach. You met some of them you probably met Andrea at the Sportsman Show and so we try and do as much of that as we can. So certainly anyone who's interested can reach out to us at GLFCorg. I can't promise that we're able to do it. You know.
Speaker 4:Again, work with our Canadian and US committees of advisors, for example, are populated by really great experts who we will often deploy to help share the good news of what we're doing and what's being done throughout the basin the good news of what we're doing and what's being done throughout the basin. We have I mentioned the Lake Committee members. We actually just I just got back from we took part in a film festival, an environmental film festival in Washington DC, where there was an expert panel and we had one of our commissioners. We had a charter boat captain from Pennsylvania and the filmmaker that sat on that panel and talked about the work that's being done and the film itself, which was created or supported by the Fishery Commission is called Fish Thief. It's streaming on most services like Apple and all that kind of stuff, and it talks about the 70-year history of trying to control sea lamprey. So there's some good stuff there.
Speaker 4:That's my little plug for the movie. I'd urge all of your listeners to check it out. It can be streamed at very low or even, in some cases, no cost. But all that to say those experts that you'll see, some of them in the film and then by the Fishery Commission by extension, are available, depending on time constraints and scheduling, are available to speak to groups.
Speaker 5:Very interesting. Well, Greg, how can people find out when the Great Lakes Fisheries Commission will be doing work in a stream near where they are so they can ask questions or see the process working and find out more details about that? Is there a place that they can go to to find out some of those information?
Speaker 4:Yeah, there's a wealth of information located on our website at glfcorg and, failing that, you will also see a staff directory on there. So certainly you can. There's numbers for our Sea Lamprey director, our control director there's my number. Is there our communications department? All of our staff are happy to ask those questions. Once we get things queued up for the season, the schedules are typically set out into the areas so people will see them if their local media picks it up and so on. But certainly don't hesitate to reach out to the commission. We're more than happy to answer questions.
Speaker 5:Very good. So once again, greg, how can people get in touch with yourself or with the Great Lakes Fisheries Commission to find out more details, and where to go to find out details about all the things that we just finished talking about?
Speaker 4:Yep, glfcorg GreatLakesFisheryCommissionorg is a great resource. There's everything. All of the science information is there, all of the information on sea lamprey control, some of the developing stories that we've just chatted about in the initiatives and, as I said, my number is listed on there Greg McClinchy, as well as our director of communications and our director of lamprey control operations. So lots of staff resources there. There's stuff that's available for download. You could take a look. For example, there's a video on what a C lamprey treatment looks like, a control treatment looks like. You can watch that. It's a wealth of information. I would encourage people to have a look. We have a mandate to not only get information but to share information, and we take that very seriously. So, again, glfcorg, or give me a call.
Speaker 5:Well, thank you very much, Greg, for being on the podcast. We really appreciate the update and all the information and the great work that the Great Lakes Fisheries Commission is doing in our Great Lakes here, both in the States and in Canada, and we want to make sure that you keep it up. And thank you for taking the time to be on the podcast.
Speaker 4:Thank you very much, enjoy being here and we'd be happy to be back anytime.
Speaker 5:Well, we appreciate that and Enjoy being here and we'd be happy to be back anytime. Well, we appreciate that, and just something a little bit different about things that happen out there under the canopy. Thanks, greg, take care.
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