• Abstract and Figures
• Public Full-text

54f-e Fisheries Research Board of Canada R, • ANNUAL REPORT to the GREAT LAKES FISHERY COMMISSION JAN 18 1963 of activities carried out under d Memorandum of Agreement during the period APRIL 1, 1959 to MARCH 31, 1960 With Investigators' Summaries as Appendices Fisheries Research Board of Canada ANNUAL REPORT to the GREAT LAKES FISHERY COMMISSION of activities carried out under a Mem-orandum of Agreement during the period April 1, 1959 to March 31, 1960 With Investigators , Summaries as Appendices 1 Annual Report to The Great Lakes Fishery Commission for 1959-1960 This report is submitted to fulfill terms of the Memorandum of Agree- ment between the Fisheries Research Board of Canada and the Great Lakes Fishery Commission. Appended are .detailed accounts by those responsible for specific aspects of the program. ENGINEERING A good deal of information has accumulated about physical characteris- tics at lamprey barriers including surveys of the property used and detailed des- criptions of the barriers. In 1959 the information was organized so that it could be filed as engineering drawings supplemented by tables of data. The work has been completed for the Harmony, Chippewa, Batchawana, Sable, Pancake, and Big Gravel barriers. While organizing this material it became obvious that in several cases, agreements about barrier sites or access roids required clarifi- cation to avoid possible trouble with neighbouring landowners; action to clarify these agreements was initiated. Information was collected on stream flows in a number of tributaries of Lakes Superior and Huron which had been selected for lampricide treatment. Predictions of stream flows at various seasons were made as an aid in overall planning for lampricide application. Other engineering assistance was also given to the • larnpricide. crews, particularly help in designing apparatus, and assistance with adding detail to the maps required. A system for filing these maps was instituted. ELECTRICAL BARRIERS. Electrical barriers were operated on each of the 19 Lake Superior tri- butaries specified in the Memorandum of Agreement. Every effort was made to install barriers as soon after April 1 as possible and to then maintain them in continuous operation until the la-mprey run seemed to be over (August 25 to September 18, except that the Pancake River barrier was operated 12 months). However,.unusually severe flooding during April and early May delayed in- - stallation of seven barriers until about the middle of May, and until lune 16 In the case of the Dog River. These conditions were mainly responsible for the non-continuous operation of 13 barriers for a total loss of 2,384 barrierrhours out of a possible 57,888 barrier-hours. The presence of sea lampreys above the barriers as reported below was presumably thei result of interrupted opera- tions. A total of 3,374 adult sea lampreys were killed and recovered at bar- riers compared with 3,044 in 1958. In the southeast end of the lake where 2 lamprey runs have been established fax some time, the numbers recovered tended to be smaller than in 1958. In the northwest end, where lampreYs have more re- cently appeared, the runs tended to be considerably greater than in 1958. A search was made for spawning sea lampreys in 12 of the 19 streams on which barriers were operated. Spawning adults were seen above one barrier and below another, and a single adult was observed above a third. The fact that sea lamprey ammocoetes were found in 195 9 upstream of the respective barriers suggests that at sorie earlier time ses 'lampreys evaded barriers on the follow- ing streams: West Davignon, Big Car\p, Stokeley, Harmony, Batchawana, Sable, Pays Plat, Big Gravel. Thirty-eight streams that had been previously surveyed and recorded as free from sea lampreys were resurveye'd. A, careful search with electro-shocking equipment showed sea lamprey ammocoetes fax the first time in two of them, the PearI and 'Pigeon Rivers. CHE/v1ICAL TREATMENT OPERATIONS S Electro.shockinuequipment was used to determine the distribution of sea lamprey ammocoetes in the following tributaries to Lake Stiperlorr West Davignon, Little Carp, Goulais, Horseshoe, Stokeley, Harmony, Chippewa, Big Carp, cranberry, S-49, Ungeresi Batchawana, Sable, Pays Plat, Big Gravel, 1ackfish, Pearl, McIntyre, Kaministikwia, and Pigeon. Other information needed fax lampricide treatments was collected as required. Treatment In 1050 lamprialde was used on the Canadian side of Lake Superior fax the first time on a large scale. A crew of men learned the teohniquer:by work. ing with armors •xperienced eteW (rom the U. S. Pith and Wildlife Service. The two crews Jointly treated a number of Itteettli in the United States and in Canxdal co-operation bitween the two criws was excellent:. • When plans fax chemical treatment became concret. in February, water samples wore immediately taken (rom the rivers specified fax treatment and shipped to the 11.1. 'Fish and Wildlife Service Laboratory - at Hammond Day, Michigan. There,,bio•aisays Wete conduated to determine,the range of 0011044• ttiktiolit of the lampricide (8•trif1uorme1hy1-4•n1tropheno1) required to kill lampreys but not fish at "summers' water temperatures using water from each river, This information, with estimates of average river flows and average temperatures, was the basis fax estimating the amount of chemical te be pur• ohased• Unfortunately, the water samples taken during the winter did not accurately - predict the amount of chemical needed in .the 14111e streams during In -many oases •ubsequent hiosinayi •howed a requirement as much as four times as great as that predicted from the swintere water,samples, and in some cases indicated that a concentration strong enough to kill lamprey 1111141000@M would also kill-many of the fith. This--probletn of floss of biolo• gical activity. had been encountered in a minor form in 1058 during treatment 3 of some streams in the . U.S.A.; there.the problem had been solved by waiting until late summer or early fall at which time the concentrations required be- came reasonable. Although the Board's application crew waited until snow made further operations impossible, bio-assays continued to indicate that ab- normally large amounts of chemical would be required for successful treatment in some of the rivers. , It is probably significant that 'loss of biological acti- vity' was only a minor problem near Sault Ste. Marie, which is only 70 miles from the Hammond Bay laboratory where the technique was developed, but was much more of a problem near the Lakehead, 300 air miles from Hammond Bay where the'streams are presumably much more different chemically. Another serious proble m.was the abnormal amount of rai wich fell in the Lake Superior area in 1959. Stream flows were much greater than.ex- pected so the operators had to either use considerably more chemical than had been estimated or postpone treatment. These problems prevented the carrying out of treatment plans. Of the 13 streams specified in the Memorandum of Agreement, only eight were treated: West Davignon, Big Carp, Harmony, Stokeley, Sable, Batchawana, Pays Plat, and Big . Gravel. The Pearl River was also treated after consultation with the Commission's Executive Secretary. Electro-shocking equipment was used to search for ammocoetes in the following after they had been treated with lampricide; West Davignon, Big Catp, Stokeley, Harmony, Batchawana, and Sable. Sea lamprey ammocoetes were found only in the Stokeley, Batchawana, and Sable. Details are given • in Appendix 9 on size of ammocoetes killed during stream treatments. RESEARCH Electrical Method In tests on Big Creek in previous years it had been found that a device which created a direct current field in the water showed promise. Further field tests were conducted With the device on the Bridgland River, a tributary of the Thessalon River. The results were disappointing; work on the device has been discontinued. Laboratory tests were carried out as an aid to developing the device. It was -found that to get a sea lamprey to react to DC requires about twice as much voltage in a steady field as when the field is abruptly established. It requires about four times as much voltage to immobilize sea lamprere by DC as to im- mobilize them by AG. Some lam-prey spawning near the site of the D. C. guider experiment was observed closely. The effect of artificially changing current flow over gravel suitable for lamprey spawning was noted. Several sea lampreys built nests where the current was artificially restricted to a flow of less than one-third of a foot per second, and in sorne cases to an imperceptible current. Under these conditions of unusually slow current, lampreys mated, eggs were deposited in at least five of the eleven nests observed, between 1110 and 4610 of these eggs 4 developed to at least the two-cell stage, and larvae hatched from between 7% and 19% of them. The axnmocoetes left the nests 10 to 27 days after the eggs were laid. Although'lampreys spawned in the stream where there was very little current, attempts to induce them to spawn in a pen in the open lake failed.. Chemical Method Two biologists were seconded for work at Hammond Bay, Michigan un- til the arrangement was terminated by mutual agreement in December 1959. Reports from the U. S. Fish and Wildlife Service indicate that they contributed materially to the development of lampricides as a lamprey control technique. Ammocoetes . Until recently, it had been assumed that ammocoetes lived in streams only. In 1959, to confirm preliminary observations made In 1958, the distribu- tion of anunocoetes in the open lake in Batchawana and'Goulais Bays, Lake Superior, was investigated. In shallow water a search was made for ammocoetes by traditional methods, namely, by electro-shocking equipment and by shovels.

Load more

  59

Copy Link