FWP Concerned About New Fish Virus In Great Lakes
MFWP, March 2007
Montana Fish, Wildlife & Parks recently adopted emergency fish-import restrictions to help prevent the spread of a deadly fish virus found in several states in the Great Lakes region.
The new import rules now in effect restrict the transportation of fish into Montana from eight states and two Canadian provinces. The import restrictions are aimed at preventing game fish for pond stocking, and live and dead baitfish collected from infected waters, from introducing the disease into Montana.
The disease, viral hemorrhagic septicemia, is known to infect at least 37 different species of fish, including trout, salmon, walleye, yellow perch and bass, all of which are important game fish in Montana. Because VHS poses a serious and
perhaps deadly threat to Montana’s wild, native and stocked fisheries, FWP is taking every precaution to keep it out of Montana.
“Fish viruses usually affect a single fish species or family,” said Jim Peterson, FWP’s fish health coordinator. “VHS is unusual, and troubling for fisheries managers across the country, because it has the potential to infect and kill lots of different fish.”
Once a fish is infected with VHS, there is no known cure. It does not pose any threat to human health.
Peterson said he is especially concerned about imported baitfish. “Fortunately, Montana does not allow the import of live baitfish, but frozen dead baitfish from out-of-state are commonly used in Montana,” he said.
Most frozen bait imported to Montana comes from the west coast. Peterson said FWP plans to contact bait dealers to tell them to avoid any frozen fish that may come from the Great Lakes.
VHS has been a problem, especially for rainbow trout, in Europe for years. It was first detected in spawning salmon in the Pacific Northwest in 1988. The VHS strain in the Great Lakes, however, which has resulted in fish kills involving many species of fish, appears to be somewhat different than either the European or Pacific Northwest strain.
VHS can be spread from water body to water body through a variety of means, not all of them known at this point. Perhaps the easiest way it spreads is through the movement of fish, including baitfish, which is why FWP moved quickly to establish restrictions on the import of live fish, and unprocessed dead fish.
Over the past two years, VHS has been found in Ontario and Quebec, Canada and eight states in the Great Lakes region, including Illinois, Indiana, Michigan, Minnesota, New York, Ohio, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin. Researchers speculate the virus may have arrived in the United States in the ballast of cargo ships from overseas that do business in the Great Lakes.
The Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service of the U.S. Department of Agriculture issued a federal order last November to prevent the spread of VHS to other waters and to protect economically important sport fisheries and aquaculture. The
federal order prohibits the importation of several species of live fish from the affected provinces and states, unless the fish have been tested and certified free of VHS.
In addition, the Pacific Northwest Fish Health Protection Committee, an organization of
fisheries agencies and organizations involved in fish health management in Montana, Idaho, Oregon, Washington, California and Alaska, issued a resolution restricting movement of untested live fish, and unprocessed dead fish, into member states.
Existing Montana law requires an import permit for any fish, except aquarium fish, into Montana.
