Where some efforts are concerned, two partners working together may be better able to accomplish the goal than one working alone. Working together since 1990 to restore the salmonid fisheries in Lake Champlain, the Vermont Department of Fish and Wildlife and the New York State Department of Environmental Conservation have achieved remarkable results and won ASA's 1999 Excellence in Sport Fisheries Management Award. Periodic stocking of the lake since the 1950s showed that the fisheries could not successfully be restored until the sea lamprey population was brought under control. The Vermont and New York agencies began their partnership with a long-term plan to control the lampreys, using experimental chemical and barrier installation. They also set sportfishing harvest goals for salmonids and rainbow smelt, one of the salmons' main sources of food.
Evidence shows that, in the last eight years, the sea lampreys have decreased dramatically.
The average number of lamprey wounds on landlocked salmon in 1997 was less than half the rate recorded in 1990. The lake trout catch in 1997 was over 41,000, a 75 percent leap from 1990, and 50 percent more of the '97 catch were more than 25 inches long. The 1997 catch of landlocked salmon also skyrocketed to 12,750, an 80 percent improvement over 1990. In 1981, when teacher Tom Furrer first visited Adobe Creek with his Petaluma high school science class, they found a dying stream where one local man was struggling to keep a few steelhead trout fingerlings alive. It was a visit that changed the lives of Furrer, his students and many volunteers who over the years have joined their successful fight to restore the creek to health.