A U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service assessment crew will conduct surveys off the mouth of the Carp River between Tuesday, September 29, and Thursday, October 8. to estimate the abundance of sea lampreys. The information gathered will be used to determine the need for sea lamprey control.

Sea lampreys invaded the Great Lakes during the 1920s and have been a destructive element of the fishery ever since, by voraciously feeding on fish.

Sea lamprey larvae hatch from eggs laid by adult lampreys in gravel nests and drift into silty bottom areas, where they burrow and live for several years. Larvae sometimes drift out of streams and settle in the immediate offshore areas near stream mouths. Failure to detect and subsequently eliminate larvae allows the lampreys to transform into parasitic adults and kill Great Lakes fish.

Fishery biologists and technicians conduct surveys for sea lamprey larvae in hundreds of Great Lakes streams each year. Most surveys are conducted by electrofishing, but in deep waters crews use a lampricide approved by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency. This lampricide is specially formulated onto sand granules and covered with a time-release coating. The formulation is sprayed over a measured surface area of water, where it sinks to the bottom, rapidly dissolves, and causes the larval sea lampreys to leave their burrows and swim to the surface where they are collected.

The chemical poses no unreasonable risk to the general population and the environment when applied at concentrations necessary to detect larval sea lampreys, according to the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency.