Photo Courtesy of U.S. Fish and Wildlife

In the ongoing battle against invasive species in the Great Lakes watershed, researchers at Michigan State University have developed a synthetic version of a sea lamprey pheromone that they are testing as a way of luring female lampreys to traps. The battle against sea lampreys in the Great Lakes goes back to the 1920s, and attempts to limit or eradicate the sea lamprey have been hit-and-miss.

A single sea lamprey can kill over forty pounds of freshwater sport fish in its life, and in the 1950s the lamprey practically destroyed the sport fishery in the Great Lakes, so any advance against this persistent invader is good news.