By Ilsa Minor

iminor@dailypress.net

ANN ARBOR — After nearly 70 years, the Lake Superior lake trout population has been brought back from the brink of extinction, according to an announcement made this week by the Lake Superior Committee.

“The decline and near extinction of native lake trout resulted in a drastic change to the Great Lakes ecosystem and devastated the region’s economy,” said Ethan Baker, chair of the Great Lakes Fishery Commission, which oversees the LSC. “The recovery of this keystone species from near extirpation to the healthy, self-sustaining population was achieved through a multi-decade and multi-jurisdictional Herculean effort that required an unprecedented amount of coordination, resources, and commitment.”

In the mid-1900s, overfishing and invasive sea lampreys devastated the lake trout population. Through the 1954 Convention on Great Lakes Fisheries, the United States and Canadian governments formed the Great Lakes Fisheries Commission, with the expressed goal of controlling sea lampreys, coordinating fishery management, and conducting lake trout rehabilitation. Those efforts began on the small Lake Superior tributary of Mosquito Creek in 1958.

The results of the work on Mosquito Creek were successful, allowing for more management techniques to be implemented. Those efforts included implementing strict harvesting regulations and stocking multiple strains of lake trout. By the mid-1990s, the LSC was able to sustainably reduce stocking efforts because naturally reproducing lake trout populations had significantly increased.

“Rehabilitating lake trout in the world’s largest freshwater lake did not happen

overnight; it required an unwavering commitment to a shared vision across multiple generations of fishery managers from Indigenous, provincial, state, and federal agencies. It is undoubtedly one of the most successful stories of native species restoration in the world. Lucky for us, we have a front row seat,” said Baker.

Between 1920 and 1950, lake trout supported an annual commercial harvest of 4 million pounds. By 1964, only 210,000 pounds were commercially harvested.

According to the announcement made by the LSC Wednesday, current estimates suggest the abundance of naturally reproduced lake trout is at or above the best estimates of the abundance prior to the sea lamprey invasion of 1938.

The milestone marks the LSC’s achievement of another goal, the 2003 Fish Community Objective of a “genetically diverse self-sustaining populations of lake trout that are similar to those found in the lake prior to 1940, with lean lake trout being the dominant form in nearshore waters, siscowet lake trout the dominant form in offshore waters, and humper lake trout a common form in eastern waters and around Isle Royale.”

The 2003 Fish Community Objective is just one of a series of similar objectives that has guided the work of the LSC since lake-specific committees were formed in 1960.

“This is an incredible success story made possible by widespread collaboration and coordination of tribal, state, and federal governments engaged in fisheries research, monitoring, and management. I look forward to the continued cooperation amongst fisheries managers and agencies to maintain healthy, self-sustaining lake trout populations in Lake Superior through effective sea lamprey control, prudent harvest policies, and protection of the Lake Superior ecosystem, which includes prevention of invasive species and water quality protection,” LSC Chair Bill Mattes said.

The LSC consists of fisheries managers from Minnesota, Wisconsin, Michigan, the Canadian Provence of Ontario, U.S. tribes represented by the 1854 Treaty Authority, Chippewa-Ottawa Resource Authority, Great Lakes Indian Fish and Wildlife Commission, and the Red Cliff Band of Lake Superior Chippewa Indians.