Conservation Challenges and Research Needs for Pacific Lamprey in the Columbia River Basin

Abstract

The Pacific Lamprey Entosphenus tridentatus, an anadromous fish native to the northern Pacific Ocean and bordering freshwater habitats, has recently experienced steep declines in abundance and range contractions along the West Coast of North America. During the early 1990s, Native American tribes recognized the declining numbers of lamprey and championed their importance. In 2012, 26 entities signed a conservation agreement to coordinate and implement restoration and research for Pacific Lamprey. Regional plans have identified numerous threats, monitoring needs, and strategies to conserve and restore Pacific Lamprey during their freshwater life stages. Prime among these are needs to improve lamprey passage, restore freshwater habitats, educate stakeholders, and implement lamprey‐specific research and management protocols. Key unknowns include range‐wide trends in status, population dynamics, population delineation, limiting factors, and marine influences. We synthesize these key unknowns, with a focus on the freshwater life stages of lamprey in the Columbia River basin.

Pacific lamprey recolonization of a Pacific Northwest river following dam removal

“…Recolonization of naturally producing aquatic animal populations can be a positive outcome of dam removals including reestablishing marine derived nutrients (Tonra, Sager‐Fradkin, Morley, Duda, & Marra, ). The literature of the effects of dam removal is large (reviewed in Hart et al, ), and fish passage barrier removal is often recommended among a suite of conservation actions for Pacific lampreys (Clemens et al, ). Our findings provide yet another example for dam removal having a positive conservation value on fishes by allowing recolonization of a behaviourally unusual and understudied migratory fish.…”

Evaluation of environmental DNA surveys for identifying occupancy and spatial distribution of Pacific Lamprey (Entosphenus tridentatus) and Lampetra spp. in a Washington coast watershed

“…Thus, eDNA occupancy models can be used to achieve management objectives. For E. tridentatus, these objectives include identifying distribution, population risk assessment, and threats analysis in understudied areas (Clemens et al, 2017;Luzier et al, 2011;Wang & Schaller, 2015). Our model provides ψ estimates that can be used as a baseline for risk assessment, as well as for temporal and spatial comparison.…”

“…Western River Lamprey (L. ayresii Günther, 1870) are sympatric with E. tridentatus and their status is less certain. The decline of E. tridentatus is a topic of great interest (Clemens et al, 2017;Wang & Schaller, 2015) because they serve important roles in ecological communities (Docker, Hume, & Clemens, 2015) and are culturally important to Native American tribes (Close et al, 2002). To aid recovery efforts, the Pacific Lamprey Conservation Initiative (PLCI) was developed and tasked to assess the range-wide status of E. tridentatus for informing risk assessment (Luzier et al, 2011).…”

Pathogens of Pacific Lamprey Detected Through Routine Fish Health Screenings

“…Pacific Lamprey Entosphenus tridentatus abundance in the Pacific Northwest has been declining and conservation actions are underway (Close et al 2002;Luzier et al 2011). Some conservation actions include translocation of wild lampreys to vacant or sparsely populated habitats (Close et al 2009;Ward et al 2012), improving access for migratory fish to new or previously occupied habitats (Keefer et al 2013;Goodman and Reid 2017;Jolley et al 2018), captive rearing (Jolley et al 2015), and artificial propagation (Lampman et al 2016;Clemens et al 2017).…”