Credit: Andrea Miehls/GLFC |
In a rare win, officials are claiming victory against the bloodsucking invader that almost collapsed the Great Lakes’ seven billion-dollar fishing industry.
More than a century ago, human activity introduced the sea lamprey, native to the Atlantic Ocean, into the Great Lakes, where they began gobbling up local fish, from salmon to lake trout to walleye. |
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“Basically, they just swam in. We opened the door for them as we were constructing canals,” says Greg McClinchey, legislative affairs and policy director for the Great Lakes Fishery Commission (GLFC), an international organization that leads lamprey-control efforts. “We didn't fully understand what the species was capable of.” |
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