Evaluating harvest‐based control of invasive fish with telemetry: performance of sea lamprey traps in the Great Lakes

Abstract

Physical removal (e.g., harvest via traps or nets) of mature individuals may be a cost-effective or socially acceptable alternative to chemical control strategies for invasive species, but requires knowledge of the spatial distribution of a population over time. We used acoustic telemetry to determine the current and possible future role of traps to control and assess invasive sea lampreys, Petromyzon marinus, in the St. Marys River, the connecting channel between Lake Superior and Lake Huron. Exploitation rates (i.e., fractions of an adult sea lamprey population removed by traps) at two upstream locations were compared among three years and two points of entry to the system. Telemetry receivers throughout the drainage allowed trap performance (exploitation rate) to be partitioned into two components: proportion of migrating sea lampreys that visited trap sites (availability) and proportion of available sea lampreys that were caught by traps (local trap efficiency). Estimated exploitation rates were well below those needed to provide population control in the absence of lampricides and were limited by availability and local trap efficiency. Local trap efficiency estimates for acoustic-tagged sea lampreys were lower than analogous estimates regularly obtained using traditional mark-recapture methods, suggesting that abundance had been previously underestimated. Results suggested major changes would be required to substantially increase catch, including improvements to existing traps, installation of new traps, or other modifications to attract and retain more sea lampreys. This case study also shows how bias associated with telemetry tags can be estimated and incorporated in models to improve inferences about parameters that are directly relevant to fishery management.

Acoustic telemetry and fisheries management

“…Holbrook et al. (, this issue) further showed that sea lamprey abundance may have been underestimated in the St. Mary's River, suggesting that traps and sterilization were less successful at population control than previously assumed. Bacheler et al.…”

“…Holbrook et al. (, this issue) tracked the movements of invasive sea lamprey in the Great Lakes ecosystem, which are responsible for the extirpation of many native fishes, and evaluated the performance of lamprey traps as a means for their eventual removal and ecological mitigation. Raby et al.…”

Telemetry narrows the search for sea lamprey spawning locations in the St. Clair-Detroit River System

“…Previous research has not revealed any evidence that transport of adult sea lampreys among streams influence their behavior (Kelso et al 2001). To minimize possible violations of Assumption 1, we used the earliest-caught (i.e., least mature) lampreys from Lake Erie tributaries and used smaller transmitters than have been used on sea lampreys (Kelso and Gardner 2000;Holbrook et al In Press). Transmitter retention rates (Assumption 2) were perfect and failure rates were low (<3 %) in a recent study that used transmitters from the same manufacturer over a similar time period (Holbrook et al In Press), suggesting that violations of Assumption 2 were negligible.…”

Revealing migration and reproductive habitat of invasive fish under an active population suppression program

“…Although control is not always an option, the costs of inaction can justify management programs to reduce the negative consequences of aquatic invasive species on ecosystems and the economies they support (Homans & Smith, ; Horsch & Lewis, ; Lovell, Stone, & Fernandez, ). In some freshwater systems, invasive species management has been performed through targeted removal during periods when individuals aggregate, including early developmental stages and adult migration (Bajer, Chizinski, & Sorensen, ; Holbrook et al, ).…”