In the 1950s, the Vermont Fish & Wildlife Department (VTFWD) and New York State Department of Environmental Conservation (NYSDEC) joined forces to implement a lake trout restoration program in Lake Champlain. Their hope was to reverse the damaging effects of not only overfishing and habitat loss, but invasive sea lamprey—a parasitic fish that were preying on the native salmonids.
According to the NYSDEC, “moderate numbers of sea lampreys were first noted in Lake Champlain in 1929.” But it wasn’t until 1972 that the Lake Champlain Fish and Wildlife Management Cooperative was formed to collectively evaluate and manage environmental impacts on fish and wildlife species in Champlain. The cooperative is comprised of a team of scientists, biologists, and conservationists from the U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service, the NYSDEC, and the VTFWD. For the last 50 years, they have worked tirelessly to augment wild lake trout populations by continuing the stocking of hatchery-raised fish and controlling invasive sea lamprey populations. In short, their plan worked. After this spring, stocking lakers in Lake Champlain will no longer be necessary.
Back in April 2025, the NYSDEC announced that Lake Champlain’s lake trout populations have officially been re-established thanks to the coordinated efforts of the cooperative. The announcement highlights a major win for advocates of native fish restoration and the recreational fishermen who enjoy the resource.
Moving forward, the health of Champlain’s wild lake trout—along with the abundance of invasive sea lamprey—will remain under close watch. If native laker numbers appear to be on the slide again, a plan will be put into place to resume the stocking program.
For now, anglers can reap the benefits of this massive conservation success in the best way we know how—ice fishing for lake trout.
Read the NYSDEC’s full press release detailing the tale of conservation success below.
The New York State Department of Environmental Conservation today announced that thanks to a successful, decades-long collaborative effort with the Vermont Fish and Wildlife Department and the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, lake trout are restored to Lake Champlain. As a result, the wild population no longer needs to be augmented by hatchery-reared fish, and stocking will end after this spring. The decision was announced by the Lake Champlain Fish and Wildlife Management Cooperative — a working group of fisheries professionals from the three agencies — at its annual meeting on April 10, 2025.
“The establishment of a self-sustaining lake trout population in Lake Champlain is a direct result of a robust cooperative effort between partner agencies and the University of Vermont to restore this native fish and associated fishery,” New York State Department of Environmental Conservation Acting Commissioner Amanda Lefton said. “This restoration effort serves as a model for states to effectuate positive and collaborative conservation outcomes.”
“Bringing back Lake Champlain’s native lake trout to the point that they no longer depend on stocking is an incredible conservation success,” Andrea Shortsleeve, Interim Commissioner for Vermont Fish and Wildlife Department said. “This would not have been possible without strong partnerships — scientists and conservation groups from across the region support our decision to stop stocking and focus on maintaining good numbers of wild trout.”
“The Service is proud to be a partner in this cooperative and of our contributions towards improving conditions to restore this native species in Lake Champlain,” Wendi Weber, Regional Director for the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service in the Northeast Region said. “It’s exciting to see the return on investments in the sea lamprey program, by rebuilding an important recreational fishery and supporting the regional economy.”
The cooperative has collaborated to increase the lake trout population since 1972, by stocking hatchery-raised juvenile trout and initiating a sea lamprey control program in 1990. Sea lamprey is an invasive parasitic species that preys on the fish. The latest survey of lake trout suggests Lake Champlain’s population is self-sustaining because of these measures.
Recreational fishing in Lake Champlain generates about $474 million in economic activity annually. The lake trout restoration program was created in the 1950s by the state agencies, who began stocking the lake annually with yearling lake trout. It quickly became apparent that invasive sea lamprey, which first entered the lake from the Hudson River through the Champlain Canal, were preying on the stocked trout. In 1990, the Fish and Wildlife Service partnered with the state agencies on a sea lamprey control program, and the federal agency has led the program since 2011.
The cooperative will stock trout once more this spring, then continue to assess the health of the population and prepare a plan that includes benchmarks for reinstituting stocking if wild lake trout numbers appear to be declining.
While stocking was critical given losses to sea lamprey, successful re-establishment of a wild lake trout population would not have been possible without strong measures to control the invasive species. Native to the Atlantic Ocean, lamprey play an important role in ocean and coastal river ecosystems but cause havoc when they invade inland waters with no natural predators. Lamprey latch onto fish like lake trout and feed off their bodily fluids, seriously harming or killing the hosts.
The USFWS lamprey control program is multifaceted and includes adding physical barriers to rivers and streams entering Lake Champlain; applying lampricides that target and kill larval sea lamprey before they prey on fish; and trapping and removing adults before they can spawn. After reaching a high of 99 sea lamprey woundings per 100 lake trout in 2006, the rate dropped to 23 per 100 in 2022. The wounding rate has hovered around the cooperative’s target of 25 for the last two years. Continued control of this invasive species will support restoration of other native fish species and sustain a thriving recreational lake trout fishery that bolsters local economies. For every $1 invested in the sea lamprey control program, $3.50 is returned to the economy.
For more information sea lamprey and efforts in New York, visit DEC’s website.