2/26/2025

UPPER MICHIGAN - Cuts to federal funding and jobs could hurt fishing in Lake Superior.  A staffing shortage looms over the agency that oversees management of invasive species, like sea lamprey.  It is believed sea lamprey first made their way into the Great Lakes through the Erie Canal, reaching Lake Superior in 1938.  The Great Lakes Fishery Commission, a joint U.S. and Canadian taskforce, leads lamprey control efforts. Director of Policy Greg McClinchey says the commission kills around eight or nine million lamprey a year.  On February 14, he said his organization was made aware that 12 U.P.-based probationary employees of the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, which carry out lamprey control, would be let go which represents about a third of the control taskforce.