In Lake Superior, the largest freshwater lake in the world, populations of native lake trout were on the brink of collapsing in the 1960s due to overfishing and invasive sea lampreys. Now, the species has recovered to such an extent that state officials will be using lake trout from Lake Superior to stock other lakes around Minnesota, the Minnesota Star Tribune reported.
"It's kind of a good story to tell,'' said Cory Goldsworthy, Department of Natural Resources Lake Superior fisheries supervisor. "We busted our butts to rehabilitate lake trout in Lake Superior and now the population is doing so well we are using those adult fish for inland stocking programs.''
State officials were stocking Lake Superior with lake trout in order to keep the species going until 2015, when it was decided that the trout were finally reproducing enough on their own. Now, the fact that lake trout will be brought from Lake Superior to stock other lakes is a surprising and heartening reversal.
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Part of the reason why lake trout are currently doing so well is that Lake Superior experienced a boom in lake herring populations in 2022. The smaller fish are a prey species for trout and salmon, meaning that the trout will now have enough food for at least the next 20 years, Goldsworthy said.
The near eradication of the invasive sea lamprey in the Great Lakes has also played a big role.
Officials have been fighting against the sea lamprey, which are highly predatory and gobble up native species at an astounding rate, for decades. After trying several methods of controlling their populations, scientists finally managed to develop a lampricide — in other words, a targeted poison — that is highly effective at killing lampreys without harming the native species.
The entire saga is a useful reminder that humans have the capacity to help native species recover and allow ecosystems to thrive, even after they have been massively harmed, either by human activities or other species. The efforts to bring lake trout back to Lake Superior took more than half a century — but, ultimately, they proved worth it.
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