U.S. federal job cuts hit Great Lakes invasive species program, fishery commission says

A decision by the United States government to fire more than a dozen federal workers who are classed as probationary has hit home at the bi-national agency that protects the Great Lakes fishery.

Twelve fired employees of the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service and two with the U.S. Geological Survey helped control the invasive sea lamprey for the Great Lakes Fishery Commission, a commission spokesperson says.

The director of policy and legislative affairs for the commission said it's too early to know the impact of the cuts on the 2025 program, which is set to roll out in April.

But it's probably not positive, Greg McClinchey said.

"If the commission was to - and I'm not suggesting we're going to do this, just to be clear – but if the fishery commission were to cut its control program  by one third … that would mean there would be somewhere in the neighbourhood of about 2.5 million lamprey that would remain alive," he said.

"Two-point-five million sea lamprey would eat 12 million pounds of fish. … And that economic loss potential is about $264 million."

Lampreys nearly decimated the Great Lakes fishery

Sea lampreys are eel-like creatures with sucker-like mouths that latch onto fish and consume them.  

They first turned up in the Great Lakes approximately 100 years ago, McClinchey said. 

Each lamprey eats about 40 pounds of fish over its two-to-three-year lifespan, and each female has about 100,000 babies. 

At their peak they were consuming around 105 million pounds of fish per year and would have decimated the Great Lakes fishery within three to five years, he said. 

In the 1950s, the commission was tasked with controlling the species, after piece-meal efforts by Canada, the U.S. and individual states and provinces failed. 

The program of treating streams with lampricide - which is non-toxic to the the surrounding ecosystem - kills about eight or nine million lamprey a year, McClinchey said. 

A total of about 85 employees of the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service are involved in the lamprey control program, he said.

About a third of them are larval assessment staff, and another two thirds work with the lampricides, the compounds introduced into streams where the creatures breed and spend their larval years.

He couldn't say how many of the fired staff were new employees and how many were on probation because they had recently received a promotion. But he estimated that the majority were in the latter category.

McClinchey is currently in Washington, lobbying congress to ensure the program has the resources it needs to do its job this year, he said.

'Nobody has sided with the lamprey'

Already, he said, the commission has received assurances that Fish and Wildlife will be able to hire the 25 seasonal workers that help with the work.

"I think it's become clear that nobody woke up and said, 'Let's hurt the Great Lakes Fishery Commission program," he said. 

"Nobody has sided with lamprey that I've been able to detect."

The U.S. government has not cut the funding for the program itself, McClinchey added.

The commission continues to receive approximately $20 million U.S. annually from Washington and about $8.5 million Cdn. from Canada - a funding formula based on the share of the lakes in each country's territory.

It is technically open to the commission to use the money to contract with other service providers, such as universities, to obtain the same services that Fish and Wildlife and the Geological Survey were providing, he said.

"The challenge is, of course, that the folks who are doing this program for us are, like … they're trained. They're expert. They're certified," he said.

"It's not quite as easy as saying. 'Let's hire up a bunch of new people.' They obviously have to be people with the skills and abilities to do the job."

The Canadian Department of Fisheries and Oceans is also involved in the lamprey control program, McClinchey said, and there's no indication of cuts on the Canadian side.

He remains optimistic that the U.S. government will ensure the 2025 program can go ahead as planned, he added.

"Failure is not an option," he said, "because the Great Lakes are just too important to us."

One Canadian organization that works to address other invasive species in the Great Lakes, including aquatic plants such as water soldier and hydrilla, said it's monitoring the situation in the United States.

Colin Cassin of the Invasive Species Centre said it's too early to tell how its U.S. partners would be impacted by the federal cuts, but his organization is concerned.

"The challenge, from our perspective, is that invasive species don't respect borders," said Cassin, the executive director of the organization,

"The fish don't have a passport."

Strong cross-border collaboration has been critical to dealing with invasive species, Cassin said, and he hopes it will be able to continue.