The invasion of the sea lamprey wreaked havoc on a once thriving GreatLakes fishery. For years, chemicals have been used to reduce thelamprey population, but now researchers are experimenting with somethingmuch less toxic. The Great Lakes Radio Consortium’s Mark Brush reports:
Transcript
The invasion of the sea lamprey wreaked havoc on
a once thriving Great Lakes fishery. For years
chemicals have been used to reduce the lamprey
population, but now researchers are experimenting
with something much less toxic. The Great Lakes
Radio Consortium’s Mark Brush reports.
Pheromones are essentially smells that carry a
message… like where to find a mate, where to find
food, or directions to potential a spawning ground.
Doctors Peter Sorensen and Weiming Li are using
pheromones from sea lampreys in an effort to
control where they go.
Sorensen says the promising thing about using
pheromones is that the pheromones are extremely
potent.
“So it’s extremely effective at low concentration –
it’s extremely specific – it would only be expected
to affect lamprey it’s safe – easily licensed – and
should once developed be relatively easy and safe to
deploy, so there’s a lot to be said for using
pheromones.”
If successful, Sorensen hopes the pheromones can
eventually be used to control the lamprey
population in the Great Lakes.
For the Great Lakes Radio Consortium, I’m Mark
Brush.