Contacts
Dave Tilton, USFWS, 802-872-0629; Angelo Incerpi, Vermont Fish and Wildlife Department, 803-241-3700; Larry Nashett, New York State Department of Environmental Conservation, 518-897-1333
Lake Champlain’s Fish and Wildlife Management Cooperative today released a supplemental environmental impact statement recommending a long-term program to control sea lamprey in Lake Champlain. Policymakers from the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, Vermont Department of Fish and Wildlife, and New York State Department of Environmental Conservation recommended a program that will use lampricides as well as non-chemical means to control the eel-like invasive parasite.
The Service and the states of Vermont and New York form the Cooperative, a 30-year-old organization dedicated to managing fish and wildlife resources in the Lake Champlain watershed.
"The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service is proud of this cooperative effort to conserve Lake Champlain’s living natural resources and provide public benefits through reestablishing native fish populations," said Dr. Mamie A. Parker, the Service’s acting Northeast regional director.
"The coordinated efforts of the Cooperative are a shining example of state and federal agencies using sound science in a true partnership to protect, manage and enhance inter-jurisdictional fisheries," said Gerald A. Barnhart, director of New York’s Division of Fish, Wildlife and Marine Resources. "The recommended sea lamprey control program should result in increased recreational fishing benefits derived from the Lake Champlain fishery and will aid in the restoration of self-sustaining populations of lake trout and landlocked salmon," added Barnhart.
"Restoration of Lake Champlain’s historically significant lake trout and landlocked salmon populations is very important for the intrinsic and recreational benefits they and other species provide," said Angelo Incerpi, Vermont Fish and Wildlife’s director of operations. "This recommendation to enact a long-term sea lamprey control program for Lake Champlain is a key component in our cooperative restoration efforts between New York, Vermont and the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service."
The recommended approaches to sea lamprey control in Lake Champlain were developed after rigorous scientific evaluation of an eight-year experimental control program and with public input from meetings in Vermont and New York. The Cooperative outlined a proposed long-term control program in a draft supplemental EIS published March 15. A comment period and two public hearings about the draft supplemental EIS provided additional input in the development of the proposed alternatives in sea lamprey control.
A summary addressing significant comments has been incorporated into the final supplemental EIS, and stream-specific sea lamprey control strategies have been refined and recommended as part of the long-term sea lamprey control program.
Native to the northern Atlantic Ocean, sea lamprey are believed to have invaded Lake Champlain in the 1800s. They reached the Great Lakes in the 1930s after canals provided access around natural barriers to their migration. The sea lamprey’s aggressive, parasitic behavior allows it to attack and often kill native fish including Atlantic salmon, lake trout and walleye by draining body fluids through a suction cup-shaped mouth filled with rasp-like teeth. Sea lamprey infestation has decimated fisheries throughout the Great Lakes and Lake Champlain.
The supplemental EIS is available at many public libraries and state offices in Vermont and northeastern New York and at the Service’s Lake Champlain office (phone 802-872-0629), which can direct callers to locations where the supplemental EIS is available. After a 30-day review, a decision will be issued in October.
The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service is the principal federal agency responsible for conserving, protecting and enhancing fish, wildlife and plants and their habitats for the continuing benefit of the American people. The Service manages the 93-million-acre National Wildlife Refuge System, which encompasses more than 530 national wildlife refuges, thousands of small wetlands and other special management areas. It also operates 66 national fish hatcheries, 64 fishery resource offices and 78 ecological services field stations. The agency enforces federal wildlife laws, administers the Endangered Species Act, manages migratory bird populations, restores nationally significant fisheries, conserves and restores wildlife habitat such as wetlands, and helps foreign governments with their conservation efforts. It also oversees the Federal Aid program that distributes hundreds of millions of dollars in excise taxes on fishing and hunting equipment to state fish and wildlife agencies.
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