The slimy vampire fish grabs onto the Columbia River Dam for its life. It grips on the side of the dam with its sharp, suction-cupped mouth, climbing heights just to cross the river and reach spawning grounds.
University of Idaho researcher Christopher Caudill has been overseeing the Pacific lamprey migration project in the College of Natural Resources since 2008, with the goal of conserving lamprey and helping them reach spawning grounds.
Caudill said they’ve been creating new structures to help the lamprey pass the dams, while keeping in mind the effect these new inventions have on the current salmon population.
“About half of the lamprey that approached a dam passed and some of them would get in the fish ladder and turn around. Others wouldn’t even get in the fish ladder at all,” Caudill said. “Our program started wondering how that was, what sort of criteria that lamprey needed to get over the dam in terms of just the engineering.”
The number of lamprey counted passing Lower Granite Dam — the last of the lower Snake River dams, has been steadily declining, with several years of extremely low returns, according to the Columbia River Inter-Tribal Fish Commission.
Caudill said they have been creating ramps for Pacific lamprey during the project, measuring carcasses, and they will conduct a fatigue experiment on the lamprey in May.
Food web ecologist and Ph.D. student Matthew Dunkle in the Department of Fish and Wildlife Sciences is involved with radio tagging lamprey to track where their carcasses end up.
“For my master’s research I collaborate with the Columbia River Inter-Tribal Commission and two of its tribes, the Yakama Nation and the Confederated Tribes of the Umatilla Indian Reservation,” Dunkle said. “We were interested in exploring the terminal end of lamprey migration.”
Dunkle said the carcass experiment results ended up having lamprey removed from the streams completely.
“From tags, we were able to find right after spawning about 30 percent were up on the banks,” Dunkle said.
Dunkle said this is an important issue needing work because populations have been decreasing. He said some key factors of the issue have been ocean conditions, issues with spawning grounds, quality of habitat in freshwater and perhaps more importantly, poor migration conditions. This led to questions he’s been asking himself.
“My end of the research was asking what possible role do these species play historically. Acknowledging these species, that a lot in the Columbia are functionally extinct,” Dunkle said.
Caudill and Dunkle said preserving lamprey isn’t just important for conservational reasons, but also cultural.
“This research needs to be done because Pacific lamprey hold a really important place in the cultures of native people in the Columbia Basin. They’re a deep-seated part of their culture,” Dunkle said.
Population decline in Pacific lamprey has been a continuing issue for some time, and Caudill said the tribes brought it to people’s attention.
“In early 2000s, some of the regional tribes started bringing attention to this because they are important to the tribes culturally as well as a food item. They are a part of some of their origin stories,” Caudill said.
Ralph Lampman, a biologist and Yakama tribe member, is translocating Pacific lamprey in streams to spawn.
He said that Pacific lamprey is an important food source for tribes. Right now they only have enough to serve at funerals, and having lamprey numbers decline would cause the younger generation to lose knowledge of how to prepare the fish.
“It’s the bacon cheeseburger of the aquatic world to salmon,” Lampman said.
Lampman said the fish is not only a food source for tribes, but also a medicine source.
“The tribes call it a medicine because it enriches your body, keeps you strong and healthy,” Lampman said.
UI partnered with biologists, the Army Corps of Engineers, eight staff scientists, National Marine Fisheries, the Columbia and Snake River dams and tribes to save the species.
Caudill said funding for the project comes from about 5 or 10 percent from the tribes, and the majority of the funding has come from the Army Core of Engineers.
This project has been a group effort, and Dunkle said the tribes have been a huge help during the process.
“Tribal leadership in the area has been critical to the improvements we’ve made so far. They’re really leading the way,” Dunkle said.
Lampman said the tribes can’t do it alone to save lamprey.
The research is still an ongoing process. First year graduate student Sarah Hanchett said she’s going to conduct an experiment to see how fatigue affects the rate of lamprey crossing the dams. She is excited about continuing the project this summer, and believes this project will raise awareness in the community for lamprey.
“I think it will get them to think about their value,” Hanchett said.
One thing all these people have in common is passion for this eel-like suction cupped mouth fish.
“They are just fantastic, ninja, vampire, snake fish,” Caudill said.
Lindsay Trombly can be reached at [email protected] or on Twitter @lindsay_trombly