The high point of summers when I was a kid was fishing with my grandfather. It was only about 4 or 5 hours but it was an adventure. He had a 1933 Diamond-T flatbed truck that he used for his business that I have highlighted in a couple of places on this blog. He also had a 14 ft. wooden boat built by the Peshtigo Boat Factory that he kept in immaculate condition. He shellacked the interior and repainted the exterior every three years. It always looked new. He powered it with a 15 hp Johnson outboard motor.
Every fishing trip started the same way. We put the boat and motor into the back of
the Diamond-T, headed to the local bakery and picked up a dozen plain donuts or
“fry cakes” as he would call them, and then drove out to Bad River where we
put the boat in. He knew several people
with boat landings and occasionally we would just drop it in down a steep river
bank from a dirt road. We were always
within a few miles on the upstream or downstream side of the U.S. Hwy 2 bridge.
Our fish of choice was walleye (Sander vitreus). My grandfather’s preferred bait was June Bug
spinners with nightcrawlers. He and I
usually used those with bait casting setups and 40 lb test nylon line. The third person in the boat was a guest who
in some cases would use exotic spin casting or spinning setups with many
different artificial lures. Bad River
has a lot of snags and brush on the banks and that caused trouble for exotic
lures cast great distances with monofilament line.
We did not catch a lot of our preferred fish but there were
plenty of other species to keep things interesting. We typically caught and released them all
except for the occasional walleye. Between
the fish biting we ate donuts and drank coffee.
There was always some kind of explanation for why we did not catch
fish. The water was too muddy or warm. The river had been fished out with commercial
gill nets. At one point there was talk of electrified nets and poison applied
to catch or kill the sea
lamprey (Petromyzon marinus). Sea lamprey are cartilaginous ancient
parasitic fish that have been around for 340M years and survived all of the extinction
events. Before the advent of shipping
canals in the mid-19th century, Niagara Falls was a natural barrier
to sea lamprey migration into the Great Lakes.
The first sea lamprey was discovered in Lake Superior in 1938 and in
other Great Lakes earlier. Sea lamprey
have a devastating effect on the commercial and game fishery of the Great Lakes
because of their reproductive success and success as a parasite. Each lamprey can kill up to 40 lbs of game
fish per year and reduce the fishing harvest to a fraction of what it should
be. The program to control sea lamprey
is highly successful largely by controlling the larval forms that develop and
migrate in various tributaries off the Great Lakes like Bad River.
What got me thinking about the sea lamprey again? Over the past two days I was staying at a
hotel on Lake Superior and noticed the parking lot had a small fleet of trucks
from the US Fish and Wildlife Service (USFWS). Each pickup truck had SeaLampreyControl.org painted on the
rear quarter panel. When I saw all of
these trucks, I was actively looking for the personnel driving them. I was interested in how this program was able
to survive the cuts of the Trump administration. It
seemed like an easy target. Most people
don’t know anything about the Great Lakes ecosystem or how it is scientifically
monitored and managed. Most people have
no clue that as they are driving across Michigan’s upper peninsula and across
northern Wisconsin into Minnesota that there are fishery biologists all along
the way focused on that habitat and trying to keep it healthy. The Trump administration has made it very
clear that they don’t care about the environment or any of the associated
science and in fact have open contempt for it.
But I was not able to find any of the staff driving those trucks so I
decided to do my own research. I have done limnology and freshwater biology and chemistry courses and
research as an undergraduate – but this research was more straightforward. I wanted to know if this program was a target
of the Trump administration’s cuts.
The Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) did target
the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service’s (USFWS) Sea Lamprey Control Program.
In early 2025, 14 critical personnel (12 from USFWS and two from the U.S.
Geological Survey(USGS)) were terminated right before the spring treatment
cycle. The Resolution highlights the
fact that terminations and hiring freezes would reduce the lamprey control
program by 1/3, leaving insufficient staff to implement the program and putting
the Great Lakes fishery at great risk. At least one reference states that the Trump
administration was “ordered” to reinstate the fired workers (2). Other sources suggest the cuts were
potentially much larger and that Trump reversed them in January of 2026 by a
bill. There is also supposed to be a paper trail of what happened in
Congressional Committees and within the Department of the Interior / USFWS
Memos. But I can’t find any details
about this. I was eventually able to
locate a press release about the firings and how they were reversed by court
order. The specific USFWS employees were
mentioned (4).
My overall analysis based on limited information highlights
the obvious lack of rational thinking. Before I had located any of the
references, it seemed like the usual bad administrative exercise of just
cutting an arbitrary number of people for the sake of making numbers. We know
from DOGE headlines that this effort saved nowhere near the amount that they
claimed and fired critical workers who had to be immediately rehired because
the firings created a safety threat to the American people. At first glance it seems like that is what
happened to sea lamprey control. After the initial workforce reduction, the
economic details presented in reference 1 were considered and the staff were
rehired in order to prevent massive losses to the Great Lakes Fishery.
But that is not what appears to have happened. There was no rational thinking by the
administration, only a legal technicality noted by a judge who said the
administration does not have the power to fire staff from agencies outside the
Executive Branch. A Supreme Court
decision eventually blocked reinstatement of probationary employees on a
technicality. So, no rational reversal of
an irrational decision. To be clear, I am not sure that anyone knows the status
of the fired employees from the USFWS and USGS.
I have sent an email to the USFWS to clarify what happened and I sked
them specifically about whether sea lamprey control was at full strength.
My intent in writing this post is to focus squarely on the shortcomings of ideological decision making. First, it short circuits rational decision making. Just looking at the economics – it makes no sense to stop a cost-effective government initiative that benefits a multibillion-dollar fishing and tourist industry. That alone has value even without comparisons to how the current administration has squandered billions in tax dollars and continues to do so. Second, the ethical dimension exists in the form of: “Is it ethical to stand by and watch the Great Lakes ecosystem destroyed and overrun by millions of parasitic fish?” According to the numbers the sea lamprey is capable of this level of destruction. The sea lamprey would not even be in the Great Lakes if it were not for government initiatives bypassing Niagara Falls allowing the initial migrations. At that level sea lamprey and other invasive species are a manmade problem and it seems like a serious ethical lapse to not want to prevent that catastrophic outcome.
This is one small example of what happens when you have ideological myopia. Allowing the destruction of the Great Lakes ecosystem would be consistent with this administration's approach to climate science, medical care, and international aid all based on an alleged financial gain. It is essentially running a government that should have benefits for the people like running a business to produce benefits for only the favored few.
It is hard to imagine a Great Lakes without Grandfathers and Grandchildren fishing....
George Dawson, MD, DFAPA
References:
1: United States
Committee of Advisors to the Great Lakes Fishery Commission. Resolution 25-01:
A Resolution Calling for Full Support of the Great Lakes Sea Lamprey Control
Program Including Full Restoration of Staff and an Exception to the Hiring
Freeze in the United States to Implement the Critical Bi-National Control
Program. https://www.glfc.org/pubs/pdfs/resol2025_1.pdf
2: Greco F. U.S. firings reversed, yet Great Lakes Sea
lamprey fight faces uphill battle. CBC
Lite April 4, 2025. https://www.cbc.ca/lite/story/1.7501665
3: Krumme M. The invasive sea lamprey is poised for
comeback in the Great Lakes. Wisconsin
Public Radio. December 8, 2025. https://www.wpr.org/news/invasive-sea-lamprey-comeback-great-lakes-federal-funding
4: Jenkins D. Judge adds U.S. Fish and Wildlife to order
curbing DOGE firings. Capital
Press. March 3, 2025. https://capitalpress.com/2025/03/03/judge-adds-u-s-fish-and-wildlife-to-order-curbing-doge-firings/
5: Totenberg N, Gatti
C. Supreme Court lets Trump move forward
with firing thousands of federal workers.
NPR News April 8, 2025. https://www.npr.org/2025/04/08/nx-s1-5351799/scotus-probationary-workers
6: Fritze J, Cole D Sneed T. Supreme Court backs Trump for now on fired probationary federal employees. CNN. April 8, 2025. https://www.cnn.com/2025/04/08/politics/probationary-fired-employees-supreme-court-trump
7: Bijman V. The Sea
Lamprey (Petromyzon marinus) Invasion: The Construction of an Invasive Animal
Threatening a "Healthy" Great Lakes Ecosystem. J Hist Med Allied Sci.
2025 Oct 8;80(4):363-383. doi: 10.1093/jhmas/jrae046. PMID: 39889225; PMCID: PMC12504013.
“Although sea lamprey research, localized control
practices, and environmental discourses considerably changed, the sea lamprey
continued to be regarded as an invasive fish that was not allowed to exist in
the Great Lakes.”
8: Siefkes MJ. Use of
physiological knowledge to control the invasive sea lamprey (Petromyzon
marinus) in the Laurentian Great Lakes. Conserv Physiol. 2017 May
30;5(1):cox031. doi: 10.1093/conphys/cox031. PMID: 28580146; PMCID: PMC5448140.
9: Dale P. Burkett,
Jessica M. Barber, Todd B. Steeves, Michael J. Siefkes, Sea lamprey control
2020 – 2040: Charting a course through dynamic waters, Journal of Great Lakes
Research, Volume 47, Supplement 1, 2021, Pages S809-S814,
“Delivery of a successful Sea Lamprey Control Program
depends upon bi-national, government-funded operations and research and is
contingent upon public understanding of the need for the Program and its
ecosystem and economic benefits. Changing social, political, regulatory, and
climatological environments present a host of strengths, weaknesses,
opportunities, and threats requiring an array of responses.”
10: F.B. Neave,
R.M.W. Booth, R.R. Philipps, D.A. Keffer, G.A. Bravener, N. Coombs, Changes in native lamprey populations in the
Great Lakes since the onset of sea lamprey (Petromyzon marinus) control, Journal
of Great Lakes Research, Volume 47, Supplement 1, 2021, Pages S378-S387,
The control of invasive sea lamprey in the Great Lakes
basin has been highly successful, but has deleteriously affected native lamprey
species. American brook, northern brook, silver and chestnut lampreys are all
susceptible to lampricide treatments.
Supplementary 1:
It is widely known that Freud studied eels as a young biologist and in
that process also studied the nervous system of the sea
lamprey.
Supplementary 2: The
sea lamprey pesticides: Are they toxic
to dopaminergic neurons?
TFM and Bayluscide, are
specialized pesticides called lampricides. These are applied by agencies like
the Great Lakes Fishery Commission to targeted streams and tributaries
where young lamprey larvae hatch and develop.
- TFM
(3-trifluoromethyl-4'-nitrophenol): This is the
most widely used lampricide. It is a selective poison that disrupts the
energy metabolism (mitochondrial decoupling) of sea lampreys at
concentrations that leave most other native fish and organisms unharmed.
Lampreys have a reduced capacity to detoxify the chemical.
- Bayluscide (niclosamide): Highly toxic lampricide that is often used in
combination with TFM. By adding a small amount of Bayluscide to TFM,
agencies can reduce the overall amount of chemical needed, keeping
treatment methods highly effective and lowering costs. A granular time-release
form is also used to treat deep, slow-moving waters or estuaries where TFM
is less effective.
Both chemicals are regulated restricted-use pesticides that
break down naturally in the environment and do not bioaccumulate. Niclosamide has been suggested as a treatment
for neurodegenerative disorders including Parkinsons and it a potential
neuroprotectant:
Apolloni S, D'Ambrosi N. Repurposing niclosamide for the
treatment of neurological disorders. Neural Regen Res. 2023
Dec;18(12):2705-2706. doi: 10.4103/1673-5374.373705. PMID: 37449632; PMCID:
PMC10358648.
