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Long Reviled as 'Ugly,' Sea Lampreys Get Some Respect (2023)
The sucker-mouthed marine lamprey has been dismissed as grotesque and a threat to sport fish. But fisheries managers in New England and the Pacific Northwest are recognizing the ecological importance of lampreys in their native waters and are stepping up efforts to help them recover.
Writing in the May 2022 Estuary Magazine, Gephard and his colleague, fisheries consultant Sally Harold, reported what they observed while snorkeling downstream of a communal lamprey nest: “An entire school of spottail shiners is lingering, intimidated by our presence and gobbling any errant eggs that are swept past the gravel mound. In the Connecticut River’s main stem, Gephard sees the carcasses of spawned-out lampreys seething with feeding caddisfly larvae, prime forage for birds and dozens of fish species. The Nez Perce in Idaho, the Yakama in Washington, and Umatilla in Oregon are transferring pre-spawn adults, collected in traps at the three lower Columbia River dams, to depleted habitat upstream.
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