Oregon Public Broadcasting

They're not pretty creatures, but how good would you look after 400 million years? The ancient Pacific Lamprey is in trouble. Numbers have dropped significantly in recent years. But as Rob Manning reports, a lack of funding and basic understanding is making lamprey recovery difficult.

Rob Manning / OPB

Tribal members from all over the Northwest will be literally walking the rocks below Willamette Falls this week trying to corral slippery lamprey. It's an annual tradition.

Warm Springs council vice chairman, Ron Suppah says the Creator ordained the lamprey as a sacred food.

Ron Suppah: "The Creator also asked the people to take care of the lamprey. And as long as we took care of them, they would always return and be here for us. But the day that we started to ignore them, and not take care of them, then they will start disappearing."

That prophecy appears to be coming true.

A study from five years ago found that an average June brought about 20,000 lamprey to Bonneville Dam, on the Columbia River. This past June, they numbered only 1,300.

Exactly what's going on isn't clear.

The same problems that have harmed salmon are generally blamed for the decline of lamprey: loss of habitat, difficulty passing the dams, poor ocean conditions. But their situations are not entirely the same.

Bob Heineth with the Columbia River Inter-Tribal Fish Commission says most improvements benefit salmon - like fish screens near the big turbines on the Columbia.

Bob Heineth: "Those same screens that are necessary to keep salmon out of turbines and to transport them, we're finding that juvenile lamprey are being impinged very seriously and killed by those screens."

Rob Manning / OPB

Migrating lamprey prefer slower water than salmon do. Heineth says they're trying out "slow lanes" for lamprey at Bonneville Dam to help them get into the fish passages. They may try that here at Willamette Falls, too.

The un-charismatic, eel-like lamprey has trouble grabbing the spotlight from the federally protected and commercially popular, salmon.

John Zauner is with Oregon Fish and Wildlife. From this small room, he can see four lamprey that have suctioned themselves to an observation window below Willamette Falls.

John Zauner: "We're learning more and more about them all the time. We've concentrated on salmon and steelhead, and just recently we've started working on lamprey."

State, tribal, and utility officials aren't waiting to try new things.

John Zauner: "When we go through this door, don't let it close behind you…"

That door gives way to a long, low-ceilinged cavern, where three fish passages come together. It was built for salmon, but it's being modified to help lamprey.

For instance, scientists have learned that lamprey can climb straight up, but can't do sharp turns. So corners have been adjusted.

But there's lots still to learn. Bob Heineth with the tribes is counting on a two-year effort to tag and track hundreds of lamprey in the Willamette.

Bob Heineth: "So we're trying to locate exactly where these lamprey end up in terms of where they spawn, and where they're holding, and so forth, and we've been fairly successful."

Heineth says he needs funding to make it easier for lamprey to get past dams.

Bob Heineth: "Each fish ladder entrance modification on the big four dams on the Columbia will cost anywhere from three to five million dollars, just for one entrance. And we've got dedicated five million from the Corps' budget for lamprey, in total. It's hard."

Heineth is talking to elected officials and advocates, to try to spur political support for these prehistoric eels.

John Zauner with Oregon Fish and Wildlife says he doesn't have problems engaging some people: kids love lamprey.

John Zauner: "A lot of young kids like zombies – so this is kind of a zombie fish that can latch onto you, and just eat you alive --- in their imaginations."

There's one other thing scaring Bob Heineth. The lamprey numbers aren't all that's shrinking. So are the lamprey themselves.

Bob Heineth: "Over the last maybe seven, eight, nine years, a reduction in the overall girth, or, the circumference around the lamprey. And apparently, by our tagging work and other work – only the largest, most robust are able to navigate upstream over multiple dams."

Scientists are telling Heineth that 2010 could be a good year for lamprey in the Willamette. But even a good year would likely be well below the eel's historic numbers.