Sea Lamprey Numbers Up In Lake Superior, Down In Lake Michigan

The numbers of fish killing sea lamprey are going up in Lake Superior and down in Lake Michigan. The Great Lakes Fishery Commission says about 100-thousand adult sea lamprey are now in Lake Superior — more than twice the targeted numbers, although the agency is not sure why. Commission spokesman Mark Gaden tells the Duluth News Tribune the new totals are still a fraction of Superior’s all time high of 800-thousand lamprey in the 1950s, when treatments began to reduce the numbers. The lamprey arrived in the Great Lakes about a century ago after swimming in from the Atlantic Ocean. Their latest populations are down in Lakes Huron and Ontario as well as Lake Michigan, but they’re up in Lake Erie.