The Forgotten Fish: Clearwater River Basin Juvenile Lamprey

This one's for Elmer Crow, Jr. the best friend a Pacific lamprey could ever ask for...

I’m a juvenile Pacific Lamprey travel bug. Help me migrate downstream! My mission is to move from the Clearwater River Basin and reach the Pacific Ocean by being placed in caches along or near the Clearwater, Snake, and Columbia Rivers. Since the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, tribes, and others are working to restore my species, I want to visit National Wildlife Refuges, National Fish Hatcheries, and other sites along the way that might be important to lamprey. Other sites of interest I could visit along the way include the Nez Perce National Historic Park and Whitman Mission National Historic Site. Make sure I visit Kooskia National Fish Hatchery and Dworshak National Fish Hatchery; I can stay, but it's a great place to learn about Clearwater Basin fish hatcheries and hatchery programs. 

If you’ve  found me near the ocean, help me migrate BACK upriver to a ‘spawning bed’ cache near where I started. Let’s see how many river journeys I can make! 

Learn More About Pacific Lamprey: 

• WEBSITE: USFWS Pacific Lamprey website
• VIDEO: Taking the Initative to Conserve Pacific Lamprey 
• VIDEO: Why Pacific Lamprey Matter to Columbia Basin Tribes:  
• VIDEO: The Lost Fish 

Why This Bug Was Made: 

This travel bug is truly unique; there are 12 others located in caches across the range of Pacific Lamprey, but each one is hand-carved by Service Visitor Information Specialist Matt How. The inspiration for this travel bug and the 'Forgotten Fish' geocaching project is a desire by U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service employees to not only educate and inspire you and other members of the public to help conserve Pacific Lamprey, but to connect with nature, too. By toting along a species from geocache to geocache or waypoint that doesn't have the charisma star power of say, a Bald eagle or a Pacific salmon, you're helping spread the word about one of the world's oldest and (we think) most interesting fish. We also want to share our passion for our trust species and habitats--they belong to all of us! So take this travel bug, help it along its mission, help us keep tabs on it, and most of all, be safe and have fun. Happy geocaching!