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If Congress approves President Trump’s proposal to cut hundreds of millions of dollars  from the operations and science budget of the U.S. Geological Survey, the scale and intensity of Great Lakes environmental restoration will be significantly diminished.   

Among the programs that could be dismantled entirely is the 70-year-old program to control sea lampreys, an exotic parasitic fish that attacks game fish and has caused billion of dollars in damage to Great Lakes fisheries.  

The principal site for lamprey research and control is the agency’s Hammond Bay Biological Station along the shore of Lake Huron. In partnership with the Great Lakes Fishery Commission, the station’s research focuses on the biology and behavior of sea lampreys and the recovery of native fish populations, while advancing technologies to improve sea lamprey control and fishery management.  

Sea lampreys entered the Great Lakes more than a century ago, and over the next half century reduced the lake trout population to 300,000 pounds annually from 15 million pounds. Once thriving fisheries were devastated, and along with them hundreds of thousands of jobs.  

Research and lamprey eradication practices developed at the Hammond Bay Station were central to reversing the collapse. One noteworthy development was the use of lampricides—chemicals that selectively target sea lamprey without harming most native species. Other advancements include the design of physical barriers and other non-chemical control tools.  

President Trump’s budget target the USGS Ecosystems Mission Area, the principal scientific research center for the Department of the Interior, and a prime source of funds for lamprey control. Funding for the program could plummet from $293 million in 2025 to just $29 million in 2026, a nearly 90% reduction.  

Greg McClinchey, director of policy and legislative affairs for the Great Lakes Fishery Commission said, “we now know by data, that not controlling sea lamprey for as little as five years could mean the collapse of some of these critical fish stocks.”  

The Hammond Bay Biological Station. Photo By Great Lakes Science Center 

President Trump has  already cut thousands of scientists and field personnel from environmental agencies. His budget proposal calls for the USGS to employ 2,650 full-time staff in 2026, a 40 percent reduction from 2024 when full-time employment was 4,717.  

Seth Herbst is the research section manager for the Michigan Department of Natural Resources Fisheries Division. If the President’s budget proposal were to reduce funding for the USGS, he said in the long term “it would really be devastating for the Great Lakes fisheries, primarily because the way we operate in the Great Lakes in terms of fisheries management.  It is so collaborative, and the information that USGS is collecting, the research and the various evaluations that they do on behalf of Fisheries and other aquatic resources would really lead to detrimental impacts on our Great Lakes fisheries.”. 

Herbst and McClinchey emphasized that this isn’t a partisan issue — it’s a regional one. 

“Natural resources and fisheries management is of interest to at least the citizens of Michigan in both political parties,” Herbst said. “Regardless of where you stand, Republican or Democrat, fisheries management is important in the Great Lakes State, and USGS is a very critical component to fisheries management.”” 

There is no guesswork about the implications of the president’s proposed budget cuts on sea lampreys and fisheries. It’s happened before. At the start of the Covid pandemic in 2020 and through 2021, sea lamprey control programs were streamlined significantly. “During that time, we saw lamprey populations in certain areas go up as much as 300 percent just in those two reduced years,” said Herbst.  

It cost fisheries and the fishing economy $2 billion, he added. 

Herbst said that commercial fisheries and consumers would feel the influence. “Any kind of devastating impact to our commercially harvested species would be felt in local restaurants and local food markets,” he said. 

Featured Image: Sea Lamprey at the Hammond Bay Biological Station in Millersburg Michigan.