Author Archives: Tom McHugh

South Hero Bird House Forest

South Hero Painted Bird House Forest

The Champlain Islands are typically Vermont, but they also have a quirkiness that gives them their own unique charm. One of these unique locations is the South Hero Bird House Forest.

 South Hero Bird House Forest

 

The South Hero Bird House Forest

South Hero’s West Shore Road is a narrow dirt road that winds along the many inlets and bays of South Hero’s west coast. Here you’ll find classic old summer camps, stony beaches, new multi-million dollar vacation homes, vineyards and wineries, and spectacular views and sunsets.

There are a few out-of-the-way, hidden, yet fascinating sites to explore, if you know where to look.

 

Hundreds of Bird Houses in South Hero, Vermont

Just north of Whites Beach, a few feet from the roadside, are hundreds of brilliantly colored bird houses hanging from the trees along the swampland. It’s almost impossible not to notice, and on summer days, it’s not uncommon to see someone slow down for a better look.

 

South Hero Bird House Forest

 

According to the property owners, they were trying to deal with the mosquitoes that came from the nearby swamp. The bird houses are home to tree swallows that eat mosquitoes. This natural pest control allows the owners to sit outside in the evening and enjoy themselves.

The project started 15 years ago, with 20 bird houses; when the owner checked after a year, he found each one occupied. He built more, and more; and now has over 400 bird houses. His wife was the one who convinced him to paint them the striking bold colors.

 

Want to see this for yourself?

Take Route 2 to South Hero, and turn onto South Street in South Hero village. Follow South Street until you reach West Shore Road, past Allenholm Orchards; then follow West Shore Road until you get to Whites Beach. The bird houses will be on your right, just past the parking lot.

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Other Articles About Lake Champlain Islands:   List of Lake Champlain's Islands

Sea Lamprey in Lake Champlain

Sea Lamprey

Petromyzon marinus

Adult sea lampreyThe sea lamprey (Petromyzon marinus) is one of four lamprey species found in the Lake Champlain Basin. Lamprey are eel-shaped fish with a skeleton made of cartilage and they belong to a primitive group of jawless fish called Agnathans. Sea lamprey have smooth, scaleless skin and two fins on their back (dorsal fins). The sea lamprey is parasitic; feeding on other fish by using a suction disk mouth filled with small sharp, rasping teeth and a file-like tongue. These are used by the sea lamprey to attach to a fish, puncture its skin, and drain its bodily fluids.

Sea lamprey have a complex life cycle. Their first four years are spent as ammocoetes – a blind worm-like larval stage – in the soft bottom and banks of waters that flow into Lake Champlain. They then transform into the parasitic adult stage and enter the lake to feed on landlocked Atlantic salmon, lake trout ; which they prefer due to their small scales and thin skin – and other fish species. After twelve to twenty months in the lake the adults migrate back into the streams to spawn, after which they die.

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Lampreys in Lake Champlain

Moderate numbers of sea lampreys were first noted in Lake Champlain in 1929. The sea lamprey has long been considered a non-native invasive species that entered Lake Champlain during the 1800s via the Champlain Canal. Recent genetic studies indicate that the sea lamprey may, in fact, be native to Lake Champlain.

Three other lamprey species are found in the Lake Champlain Basin. Two are non-parasitic, and although the third species is parasitic, it does not seem to have much impact on the Lake Champlain fish community.

Whether or not the sea lamprey is native to Lake Champlain, it has detrimental impacts on the Lake Champlain fisheries, ecosystem, and human residents that are very significant.

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What Are The Impacts of the Sea Lamprey?

Lake trout with sea lamprey attached.

Sea lamprey have a major detrimental impact on the Lake Champlain fish community, the Lake Champlain Basin ecosystem, the anglers that fish Lake Champlain, and the many people throughout the watershed whose livelihood is directly or indirectly supported by the fishing and tourist industry.

Adult sea lamprey attach to a host fish, rasp and puncture its skin, and drain its body fluids, often killing the host fish. Their preferred hosts are salmon, lake trout and other trout species, however they also feed on other fish species, including lake whitefish, walleye, northern pike, burbot, and lake sturgeon. The lake sturgeon is listed as a threatened species in New York and an endangered species in Vermont and it is likely that sea lamprey are affecting their survival.

Most sea lamprey hosts are native fish species that have been part of the Lake Champlain Basin ecosystem for thousands of years. Additionally many of these fish species are important sport fish, highly prized and sought after by anglers.

Fresh lamprey wound on a fish and the lamprey that was removed from the fish.

Prior to any control measures being taken, catches of lake trout and salmon in Lake Champlain were a fraction of catches in similar lakes, despite intensive stocking efforts. High wounding rates indicated that sea lamprey were having a significant impact on the lake trout and salmon populations, and were preventing the restoration of these native fish species to Lake Champlain.

Studies on the Great Lakes show a 40 to 60 percent mortality rate for fish attacked by sea lamprey. Other studies found that a single sea lamprey can kill 40 or more pounds of fish during its adult life. The abundance of sea lamprey were obviously having significant impacts on Lake Champlain’s fishery and ecosystem.

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Sea Lamprey Control

Liquid TFM applied to a stream during a lamprey control treatment.Due to the severity of the impacts that sea lamprey have had on the Lake Champlain fishery and ecosystem, and the social and economic impacts on the people who live in the Lake Champlain Basin, it was determined that sea lamprey populations should be controlled. The federal and state governments, the agencies that manage Lake Champlain, the various organizations that are concerned with Lake Champlain and the people who live in the Lake Champlain Basin generally agree that it would be irresponsible not to control the sea lamprey population.

The New York State Department of Environmental Conservation, the Vermont Department of Fish and Wildlife and the United States Fish and Wildlife Service formed a cooperative and began an integrated control program to reduce the sea lamprey population in Lake Champlain to  acceptable levels. This program is not attempting to eliminate the sea lamprey from Lake Champlain, but only to reduce the impacts of sea lamprey on the lake’s fishery and restore balance to the ecosystem.

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Control Efforts

Bayluscide being distributed from boat during a lamprey control treatment on a delta.Physical methods of control include the use of barriers that prevent adult sea lamprey from migrating up waterways to spawn and traps to capture adult sea lamprey before they can spawn.

However, the most effective form of control has been the treating of tributaries and deltas with lampricides – TFM in tributaries and Bayluscide on deltas. The lampricides target the larval sea lamprey, killing them before they can transform into their parasitic adult form.

It should be noted that after years of study in Lake Champlain, the Great Lakes, and other places where sea lamprey are controlled using lampricides, fisheries managers have concluded that the lampricides have little or no known permanent effect on populations of non-target species present in the treatment areas.

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Control Program

small map showing the different methods employed to control Lake Champlain sea lamprey with different color codes
(Click on Map to Enlarge)

Evaluation of an eight year experimental sea lamprey control program that took place in Lake Champlain in the 1990s documented significant benefits for fish and anglers. These benefits included decreases in wounding rates on trout and salmon, increases in weight and survival rates of lake trout, increases in angler catch rates of lake trout and a benefit to cost ratio of 3.5 to 1.

At the end of the eight year experimental sea lamprey control program, a limited, three-year interim sea lamprey control program was undertaken from 1998 to 2000. After a thorough environmental review, a long-term sea lamprey control program began in 2002.

Fish sampling programs, salmon returns to fish ladders, angler surveys and sampling of larval sea lamprey are used to measure the effectiveness of the control program. The control program may be expanded to other streams and delta areas if significant sea lamprey populations develop in them.

Assessments of sea lamprey populations are made before any control measures begin and again afterwards to determine the effectiveness of the controls. Field staff, using a variety of capture methods, sample both adult and larval sea lamprey from streams and deltas to determine the presence and density of sea lamprey populations. This information is used to determine which streams or deltas are in need of control measures and which control measures to use.

Scientists and fish managers have considered, and continue to consider, other methods to reduce sea lamprey impacts. These include the use of pheromones (chemical attractants naturally produced by lamprey) to capture adult sea lamprey, the release of sterile males to disrupt spawning, and the stocking of lamprey-resistant strains of fish.

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More about Sea Lamprey:

  • Sea Lamprey Events – Schedule and announcements of treatments and other events related to sea lamprey control on Lake Champlain
  • Sea Lamprey Experts – Experts on Lake Champlain sea lamprey discuss the natural history and past, current, & future control efforts

 

Are Lampreys an Invasive Species?

Sea lamprey illustration. The original caption...

Sea lamprey illustration. The original caption read: Fig. 586.–Petromyzon marinus, sea lamprey. (After Goode.) (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

Invasive species are plants or animals that are not native to an area, and when introduced become a problem to the original ecosystem. Sea lampreys have been causing some problems in Lake Champlain, but are they invaders or simply a species that has grown out of control?There is some debate about the origins of the sea lamprey in Lake Champlain. Some call them invasive species, but recently there have been discoveries that may point to this disliked species being more local than previously thought.

Let’s Look at the Evidence

Is the sea lamprey invasive species? It had long been believed that the lamprey had entered “Lake Champlain via the Champlain Canal, the Richelieu River and Canal, and over land primarily through human activities such as boating and bait transport” (Lake Champlain Basin Program).

“The sea lamprey was first noted in Lake Champlain in 1929 by J.R. Greeley, who reported that sea lamprey were found in moderate numbers at that time. It is not clear if, or for how long, sea lamprey had existed in Lake Champlain prior to this time.” (NYDEC)

English: Sea lamprey wounds (Petromyzon marinu...Sea lamprey wounds (Petromyzon marinus) on a salmon (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

If we take into account that fishing was a major source of food for settlers and natives at the time, and also consider the fact that sea lampreys leave obvious signs of their presence on the local fish – wounds, scars, and attached lamprey – “the lack of mention of lamprey in the oral and written history is consistent with the position that sea lamprey may be a non-native invasive species.” (NYDEC)

New Evidence Points to Native

Despite this long-held believe, recent genetic studies indicate that the sea lamprey may actually be native to Lake Champlain (NYDEC).

Some people now believe that the sea lamprey may be a native species leftover from the Champlain Sea  (Lake Champlain Basin Program). If this is true, then why have sea lampreys only recently begun to cause problems?

It may be because of:

  1. “The change in human use of the lands and waters in the lake’s watershed may have resulted in increased habitat for larval lamprey” (NYDEC).
  2. Also the original Lake Champlain salmon and trout have died out and the foreign strains introduced to stock the lake did not evolve with lamprey, therefore these fish may be more susceptible to sea lamprey parasitism (NYDEC).

Does their origin matter?

Do the lampreys have a right to be in Lake Champlain if they are native?

Native or non-native, are sea lampreys in Lake Champlain causing a major problem? Some believe that if left unchecked other fish populations would be seriously impacted as the parasitic sea lampreys feed on and kill other species–many of which are sought after by anglers.

Sunset on Lake Champlain, taken from hotel win...Lake Champlain (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

Organizations from New York and Vermont have collaborated to create a lamprey control program. The program is not trying to exterminate the lampreys, but is trying manage them.

Some environmentalists are concerned that the methods used to control the lampreys are damaging to the ecology of the lake. Some others consider the freedom of the lake’s various species to be greater than the need to for the lake to be an angler’s tourist destination.

What is your opinion?

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The post Are Lampreys an Invasive Species? appeared first on Essex on Lake Champlain.