The LAMPREY project task is to reinforce sustainable, scientific data-based management of important for Latvia and Lithuania river lamprey resources. For this, LAMPREY will develop a Strategy for sustainable stock maintenance, protection and management. The Strategy should and will incorporate results of many project surveys (on population genetic structuring, larvae density distribution, fishing mortality, and migration barriers inventorization) and best practice, shared by the international experts.

For this, in the Marine Research Institute of Klaipeda University on 11-12 May 2019 was arranged the pan-Baltic experts workshop “Lamprey population status and assessment practices in the Baltic Sea region”. The two-day workshop was attended by experts from Lithuania, Latvia, Estonia, Sweden, Poland, and Canada, also by the stakeholders from Latvia and Lithuania. Participants presented national experiences on lamprey stock management and conservation, discussed different topics on lamprey genetics, ecology, stock status and exploitation in the Baltic and sustainable management possibilities. Main findings and outcomes from Pan-Baltic expert workshop were that, unfortunately, there is no effective comprehensive lamprey stock management Strategy in Baltic Region. Moreover, the stock assessment methods are quite different, sometimes unsatisfactory, therefore, in general we do not know real situation of stock status in the Baltic. According to presented preliminary results of ongoing genetic analysis, it appeared that there is only one joint (for the Baltic Sea?) stock. Margaret F. Docker from Canada gave similar results in the online presentation, where no genetic differentiation for Pacific lamprey was found along whole distant North America Pacific coast (2600 km). This implicates, and it was agreed, that we should treat Latvian-Lithuanian river lamprey stock as one management unit, and the Strategy, therefore, will concentrate on joint management, protection, population improvement and stock assessment measures.