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Fish virus stalking Great Lakes
Local News - Tuesday, April 03, 2007
Sometime this spring, a virus that claimed some Great Lakes fish last year will likely strike again with greater force, experts say.
The killer will be viral hemorrhagic septicemia, or VHS, a virus that spreads quickly and kills many types of fish.
The disease leaves its victims - salmon, lake trout, perch, pickerel, white bass, muskie; in fact, almost every sports and commercial species - belly-up, with bulging eyes, red splotches and bleeding organs.
When and how it got into the lakes isn't certain. Nor is its eventual impact.
"There is no way of knowing," said Gary Whelan, fish production manager in Michigan's department of natural resources.
"This is a new virus in a new location, so we have no experience to guide us."
The deaths to date are just a small fraction of the millions of fish in the lakes. Even so, governments around the lakes are worried enough to try unprecedented steps to contain the virus.
Ontario's Ministry of Natural Resources is so concerned about infected fish swimming into inland waters that it tried to prevent salmon and other species from swimming up rivers to spawn.
It closed the fishways that let them pass barriers such as dams. It also made it illegal for humans to help fish over impediments, a common springtime practice.
The measure would have stopped most fish reproduction on 18 major rivers.
"We're just trying to give ourselves some time to get a handle on where the virus is," John Cooper, spokesman for the ministry's Lake Erie Management Unit said while the order was in place.
"We're trying to keep it confined to the lower Great Lakes as long as possible."
But late last week, Natural Resources Minister David Ramsay announced the fishways could reopen.
The Ontario Federation of Anglers and Hunters and other fishing groups had strongly opposed the closing, and the scientific evidence wasn't strong enough to justify shutting down spring fishing activities, Cooper said.
Instead, the province - like many American states and the U.S. government - has slapped restrictions on moving fish, minnows and other live bait, and fish eggs from infected to uninfected areas.
Initial reports said VHS was detected in the Bay of Quinte in 2005 by John Lumsden, a fish health specialist at the University of Guelph.
The first big die-offs it's blamed for came last year.
New evidence suggests it's been in the lakes a few years longer, Lumsden said, adding that all the Great Lakes except Superior have now become infected.
The virus is an Atlantic Ocean strain of VHS, one of four main varieties around the globe.
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