I would like to thank Kayla Wikaryasz for her fine reporting of the new Fishery Heritage Exhibit at Besser Museum. She tells just a few of the stories about our Great Lakes that I hope readers will enjoy by visiting the Museum’s “walk through our Great Lakes Heritage” which is centered around the Katherine V gillnet tug and the Research Vessel Chinook.

I would like to expand on one element of her coverage in Part II of her reporting.

Lamprey control is a federal responsibility – federal navigation projects brought the lamprey, and it has been a long-standing policy that the federal governments of Canada and the U.S. are responsible for lamprey research and control.

The Michigan Department of Natural Resources is not engaged directly in lamprey control, although the DNR did help to fund the initial treatment of the Great Lakes’ most humongous lamprey producer – the St. Marys River. Hammond Bay Biological Station represents a collaboration of the Great Lakes Fishery Commission and the U.S. Geological Survey’s Great Lakes program. It was, indeed as Kayla reported, the Hammond Bay Biological Station that led ground-breaking research to bring lampreys under control. Without the work of the Hammond Bay researchers, it is possible the Great Lakes would still be swarming with sea lampreys and dead invasive alewives would litter our beaches every summer. There would be no offshore trout and salmon fishery were it not for lamprey control.

Interesting how an invasive vampire, the sea lamprey, can bring us together. Our Great Lakes congressional delegation has stood united, Republicans and Democrats, in funding the work needed to keep this invader under control. Thanks to them, the DNR, and other federal agency partners, Michigan is at the center of one of the finest and economically priceless recreational fisheries of North America.

Jim Johnson- Retired Fish Biologist