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Oregon Road Conditions & Cams Email Story to a Friend June 5, 2005 A net held by biologist Stewart Reid shows the Miller Lake lamprey, the world�s smallest predatory lamprey. Biologists ready plan to bring back lampreys By MARK FREEMAN Mail Tribune Almost 50 years ago, state fish managers did their best to rid Miller Lake of its tiny lampreys without even bothering to learn what the slimy creatures really were. Now a group of biologists hopes a few hours of work with bolt-cutters and pry bars this summer can help the world’s smallest predatory lamprey find its way back to its namesake lake. Miller Lake lampreys were thought to be destroyed in 1958 when the lake was chemically treated to kill tui chubs and the lampreys, which were mistakenly believed to be common Pacific lampreys cut off from the sea by Mount Mazama’s lava. Only posthumously were they discovered to be a unique species found only in that northern Klamath County lake. Scientists last decade rediscovered the 3- to 6-inch lampreys in the lower two-mile stretch of Miller Creek, which drains from the lake. Advertisement But a long metal lip installed atop a rocky creek cascade in 1959 as a barrier to any future lamprey migration still cuts off the survivors’ path about a half-mile from the lake. "Our plan is to get over there this summer, have a couple bottles of wine and a campfire, and then the next day we’ll take that sucker out," says Roger Smith, a fisheries biologist at the Oregon Department of Fish and Wildlife office in Klamath Falls. "We can probably remove it with hand tools in the better part of a morning." This cheap and relatively passive recolonization effort and future decisions for the lake are guided by a new draft Miller Lake lamprey management plan set to be adopted Friday by the Oregon Fish and Wildlife Commission during its meeting in Salem. It also shows that species recovery can be done without the heavy-handed rules of the Endangered Species Act. "We tried like hell to kill them 40-some years ago and we thought we did," says Stewart Reid, a contract biologist in Ashland who has studied the Miller Lake lamprey more than anyone else. "But here we are now with an opportunity to manage these lampreys with a pretty light touch and keep regulations from rearing their ugly heads," he says. So the only ugly heads to rear in Miller Lake will be the fish-sucking lampreys themselves, once they find their way home. "It could take a lot of time," Smith says. "It’s not like there’s 10,000 lampreys waiting to go up. But that’s how they colonized the lake naturally. We hope they colonize it again." And when they do, their presence will right an ichthyological wrong held up in biology classes around the globe as precisely how not to treat a critter. Miller Lake was once attached to the upper Williamson River drainage, but Mount Mazama lava flows isolated the lake and the creek that flows from it. Even now, water flows from the lake down Miller Creek only to disappear into the pumice west of Highway 97. In the 1950s, the old Oregon Fish Commission tried to manage Miller Lake for trout fishing and wanted to remove the lake’s tui chubs as well as the lampreys. These lampreys live their first five years in the mud before emerging as adults. While adults, they pick out a host fish — anything from live chubs to adult rainbow and even fish carcasses — and feed off it. Within a year, they fall off, breed and die. The 1958 chemical treatment cleansed the lake and the lampreys were thought to be extinct. But the following year, fish commission biologists built a lamprey barrier to ensure the lake remained lamprey-free. Atop a section of creek that cascades over steep rock like a water slide, biologists erected a two-foot-tall concrete wall. They then bolted on a 20-foot-long, 3-foot-wide metal lip protruding at a 90-degree angle. Using their suction-cup mouths, lampreys can easily drag themselves up even vertical surfaces. But hitting the 90-degree angle makes their mouths lose suction and they fall off. "I always wondered," Smith says, "why would they have installed a lamprey barrier if they thought they killed them all?" Only in the 1960s did biologists realize just what they had killed. Dr. Carl Bond at Oregon State University examined some dead and preserved Miller Lake lampreys only to discover that they were not the Pacific variety as earlier believed. They were a unique species, Lampetra minima. The lamprey became known internationally as the species extirpated before it was recognized. "It was the classic story about management gone bad," Reid says. Biologists stumbled onto the road to redemption in 1992 when OSU researchers found two small lampreys in the upper Williamson River. In 1996, Forest Service crews found them in lower Miller Creek. Instead of rushing for an emergency listing under the Endangered Species Act, Reid — who then worked for the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service — set out to look for them. And he found lampreys all over lower Miller Creek as well as populations in the Upper Williamson and Upper Sycan sub-drainages. The ODFW drafted the management plan, which outlines how the species need cool, clean water to survive and thrive. Reid says there are "tens of thousands" of lampreys in Miller Creek, with all but a few hundred each year buried in the mud sucking on micro-organisms. After the barrier is removed, it could take at least five years before the first generation of Miller Lake lampreys are found there, Reid says. Until then, a technical team including Smith, Reid and others will re-examine the lamprey’s progress annually. "Either we’ll be happy with their progress or we’ll do something else," Smith says. "The plan now is to let them do it alone." Reid says they should do well co-existing with trout prized by anglers. While lamprey scars are seen on Miller Creek trout, only a few fingerling trout have been found to die from lamprey bites. Reid says the Miller Lake lamprey approach is a blueprint for how biologists can solve real problems without relying on burdensome rules. "It’s amazing how you can strip things down, stay ahead of the process and keep it out of the regulatory machine," Reid says. Besides, Smith says, it’s good that the forerunner of ODFW can finally get the lamprey’s blood off its hands by getting the lamprey back into Miller Lake. "From an ichthyological standpoint, it’s really cool," Smith says. Reach reporter Mark Freeman at 776-4470, or e-mail [email protected] Mail Tribune Home | Local News | Sports | Business | Obituaries | Life | Opinion AP News | Archives | Site Map | Community | Classified Copyright © 1997-2005 Mail Tribune, Inc. All rights reserved. Privacy Policy | Terms & Conditions | Website Feedback www.bingo.com Home Security Systems Trunks, Footlocker dvd-r Distance Education Computer Security Ztech Media Hosting Sports Equipment Online Casino Reviews Student Loans tcg student loan consolidation Online Pharmacy online casino Myspace Home Equity Loans Windermere Van Vleet Rogue Valley Travel Reservationstogo Hotel Reservations Southern Oregon Loans Online Casino News Natto Kinase Nattokinase Casino Gambling Sites Budget Website Templates Investments & Loans Advertisement s