Terry wrote: <Some information on identification and habitat of the lamprey...>

Great site Terry! Wish I had seen your post before I started digging out reference material---some of those tomes weigh more than all the fish I've caught this year combined.;o(

There appears to be something of a contradiction between what we have witnessed about the greatly increased presence of the Chestnut Lamprey in recent years and information on the website:

quote:
<Areas suitable for spawning tend to disappear from siltation and pollution.>

If areas suitable for spawning are adversely affected by pollution then why have we witnessed such a marked increase in numbers of Lamprey in the last few years? We know we have increasingly serious water quality issues in the Norfork. Electroshocking efforts in which I took part on Dry Run in the mid '80s produced NO Lamprey on the fish we netted for egg stripping. IIRC I saw the first one @ 3-4 years ago. The number seen has exploded in that short time span as many others have noted.

<The deterioration of river environments threatens their food supply and toxic chemicals can cause mortality.>

Seemingly another gross contradiction. Or cause for hope insofar as the proliferation of the Lamprey is concerned? Another statement in disagreement with what we have actually witnessed in any case.

<Eutrophication can cause mortality in the young>

Eutrophication (the process whereby DO is reduced by overloads of organic nutrients) is one of the most serious problems affecting the Norfork watershed. If it can prove fatal to elvers can we anticipate a sharp reduction in numbers of the Chestnut Lamprey in the near future?

As good as the data is on the website it creates more questions than it answers in regards to what we have been actually observing over the past few years.

Another area of uncertainty is to be found on the map of reported sightings of the Chestnut Lamprey in the upper RH corner of pg. 71 of "Fishes of Arkansas". There are only 3 reports of their presence prior to 1960 and those were in the NW quadrant---none appear in the White River system prior to 1960.

In the reporting window of 1960 thru 1987, the last year that appears in the map data, reports mushroomed in the majority of the major drainage basins, leaving only the NE & SE quadrants unaffected. Is this merely a reporting anamoly dictated by better observations by qualified personnel or is it a true indication of the spread of the parasite.

FWIW, the map on pg.16 of the "Atlas of N. American Freshwater Fishes" reveals that the specie is indigenous to the Mississippi drainage all the way into Southern Canada.

We need an expert to weigh in at this juncture as I have exhausted both my knowledge and my reference materials at hand.

(BTW, an illustration of eutrophication familiar to all of us that sets the example for our watersheds are the farm ponds we see in Summer with the entire water surface covered in a thick mat of green algae. You will most often see this on lands heavily fertilized with the chemical fertilizers or chicken wastes which wind up in our reservoirs.)