New Program Aims to Educate Public on Chehalis River Lamprey

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When it comes to public concern, salmon get all the love.

Now, wildlife officials want people to remember there’s another, albeit much uglier, aquatic species that deserves attention. 

The U.S. Fish and Wildlife has put together a geocaching challenge along the Chehalis River Basin to help spread awareness of the Pacific Lamprey. 

“They’re the forgotten fish,” said Daniel Spencer, an outreach specialist for the U.S. Fish and Wildlife fisheries department. “We’re trying to raise awareness and change the perception of these fish.” 

Lamprey are a primitive, jawless species of fish that has evolved very little throughout their estimated 360 million years of existence, according to wildlife officials. 

Like salmon, they spawn in freshwater streams and spend their adult lives in the ocean before returning to their native spawning grounds to lay eggs and die.

American Indian tribes also harvested lamprey as a food source for thousands of years, according to fisheries biologists. 

“They’re not the most attractive fish, which is why people have a negative opinion of them, but they’re a very important fish biologically and culturally,” he said. 



The Department of Fish and Wildlife is working to raise awareness of the Pacific lamprey by hosting a technological treasure hunt throughout the Chehalis River Basin.

Dubbed the “Chehalis Basin Pacific Lamprey Geocaching Challenge,” participants will hunt for six “mystery caches” throughout the river basin. 

Participants should brush up on their lamprey knowledge, because each cache will ask questions about the species before they can be unlocked. 

Geocaching is an outdoor recreational activity where people use GPS coordinates to find small caches of items hidden in certain locations.

The activity has been around for years but has become more accessible since smartphones have become more prevalent.  

The lamprey challenge will be going for roughly a year. The first 75 people to complete the challenge get a commemorative token.  

For more information on the lamprey geocaching challenge, visit www.fws.gov/Pacific/fisheries/sphabcon/geocache.html.