Humber Estuary sea lamprey monitoring and tagging survey

Defra procuring on behalf of Natural England: This project will assess the migration of adult sea lamprey Petromyzon marinus in the tidal Yorkshire Ouse. By determining when sea lamprey migrate through the tidal Ouse and which environmental factors may be impacting their migration we can gain a better understanding of these species and the potential pressures that they face. This study should determine how many sea lampreys are migrating through the catchment, how far they migrate and temporality of the migration.

The aim of this study is to add to the evidence gained in 2015 and increase our understanding of potential impacts of the annual DO sag on sea lamprey migration through the Humber Estuary. We hope to investigate whether sea lamprey migration occurs at the same time as the DO sag and if these two activities occur at the same time, is the DO sag causing a barrier to sea lamprey migration.

This study will only monitor the timing and movements of sea lamprey. Another study will be carried our concurrently by the Environment Agency (EA) who will monitor the DO levels.

The data collected from this study will be compared to and analysed against the DO data collected by the EA which should give us an indication of the impact of the DO sag on sea lamprey migration. This data will also be used to compare with the results and outputs from the study carried out in 2015.