A creepy, parasitic fish that thrives by sucking the blood out of its hosts – earning the nickname 'vampire fish' – is making a comeback in the Great Lakes after the pandemic interrupted population control of the species.
The fish, which has a circular row of teeth, a serrated tongue, and an eel-like shape, is called the sea lamprey., sea lampreys are native to the northern and western Atlantic Ocean but invaded the Great Lakes around the early 19th century through the Welland Canal, which connects Lake Ontario and Lake Erie.
By the 1960s, sea lampreys reduced the annual commercial catch of lake trout in the upper Great Lakes from about 15 million to half a million pounds,The Great Lakes Fishery Commission, along with the US Fish and Wildlife Service and Fisheries and Oceans Canada, has been responsible for managing the population of this highly invasive species, and the agencies have done so with considerable success.
The fishery commission touts on its website that sea lamprey populations have been reduced by 90 percent"in most areas of the Great Lakes." But between 2020 and 2021, the COVID–19 pandemic and ensuing travel restrictions interrupted the agencies' ability to go out and perform some of the population management operations.
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