With all the political and cultural divisions throughout this country and, drilling down on the map, in the Midwest — where Illinois and our adjacent states can feel more like distant strangers than neighbors — it’s sometimes difficult to remember that our destinies are all significantly intertwined.
What’s good for one can be good for all.
And there’s a time and a place to come together.
That’s maybe not an overt message of a documentary newly available on Prime and Apple TV called “The Fish Thief: A Great Lakes Mystery.”
But it’s one takeaway from this 90-minute film narrated by actor J.K. Simmons (“Oz,” “Law & Order,” “Juno”), and written and directed by Thomas Lindsey Haskin.
In the early and mid-1900s, fish in the Great Lakes started disappearing, especially the big and beautiful lake trout that helped to sustain what was a relatively robust fishing industry back then.
One of the largest collections of fresh water on the globe, the Great Lakes already had its challenges from pollution, over-fishing, damming and other environmental impacts, but eventually it became apparent that fish were disappearing from some or all of these five lakes for another reason: the sea lamprey, an invasive species that latches on to larger fish and literally sucks the life out of them.
Yes, before zebra mussels and Asian carp worried us in more contemporary times, these eel-looking creatures threatened to essentially wipe out our native fish, decimating sport fishing and fishing businesses, in Midwestern states, Canadian provinces and tribal territory that had long depended on them.
“Sea lampreys killed more than 100 million pounds of Great Lakes fish annually,” according to the Great Lakes Fishery Commission, a U.S.-Canada government-funded group involved in research, fishing management and invasive species mitigation. That “became a key factor in the collapse of the Great Lakes ecosystem and economy that it supported; tens of thousands of jobs were lost, property values were diminished, and a way of life was forever changed for millions of people.”
The film takes us through the crisis — showing how initially it was quite the riddle as to what was occurring and why, and ultimately how dedicated scientists, bolstered by cooperation (even if initially it was grudging) between various government officials and jurisdictions, figured out how to beat back, at least in large part, the proliferation of the lamprey.
Chemicals in the 20th century often told a horror story as they wreaked havoc on our waters and soils and creatures — think DDT. But here, another pesticide called TFM was painstakingly developed and, when applied to tributaries where the lamprey lingered, started wiping out the creatures and, so far as folks know, had little or no adverse effects on other aquatic life or people.
A few interesting facts:
- More than 5,000 compounds were tested over years until TFM was found to be a solution.
- A single lamprey, after latching onto its first host, can kill 40 pounds of fish during its lifetime.
- Lampreys are sometimes called a “vampire fish” because they suck the juices out of prey.
- A single lamprey can have 150 teeth with suction several times more powerful than a vacuum cleaner.
The film shows that while the tide has turned, the fight isn’t over, and there’s continued vigilance needed to regularly treat waterways so the lampreys don’t reemerge with any gusto. With a federal hiring freeze recently announced by President Donald Trump, the lamprey program — which involves hiring seasonal workers every year — may be in a predicament.
“I’m deeply concerned right now,” says the fishery commission’s Marc Gaden, fearing any hiccup in the program could result in a resurgence of the lamprey, as occurred during the pandemic when operations paused.
The film, which cost somewhere around $400,000 to produce and includes a lot of Chicago scenery, including an opening scene at Shaw’s Crab House, was an outgrowth of an oral history project involving Gaden’s group and the University of Michigan.
Says Haskin, “This is a story for all kinds of people, not just people who fish. … It’s a story of human tenacity.”
Currently, lampreys are believed to be responsible for killing under 10 million pounds of Great Lakes fish each year, which is significantly less than at the height of things, pre-pesticide.
A single lamprey can kill multiple fish, and even if hosts survive, they “often suffer from weight loss and a decline in health and condition,” according to the fishery commission.
The slow recovery of lake trout after the introduction of TFM allowed another invasive species — alewives — to surge, spurring smelly beach die-offs well known to Chicagoans and the introduction of Coho and Chinook salmon in the 1960s to gobble up the smaller creatures.
The tiny shiny smelt, themselves an invasive species, also have dramatically declined in numbers for various reasons, including falling prey to the salmon.
So it’s not an overstatement to say the creatures under our waters are more or less all interconnected, much like those of us above the waters.