Why no VHS-caused fish kills this year?

[Spiel]

Why no VHS-caused fish kills this year? Calm Before Storm?

 

 

Friday, May 30, 2008

David Figura, Outdoors Editor / syracuse.com

 

John Berry / The Post-Standard Francis Daher, owner of Mickey's Bait & Tackle, holds Golden Shiners to be used as bait. Bait-sale restrictions are still in place after past fish kills connected to the VHS virus.

 

 

Last year at this time, the Central New York fishing community was buzzing about fish kills connected to the VHS virus and a new set of controversial restrictions governing the sale of bait.

 

The bait-sale restrictions are still in place and those who violate them risk getting a ticket costing the angler up to $250. In fact, the state Department of Environmental Conservation is considering making the bait restrictions a little tighter.

 

So far this spring, though, there hasn't been a single VHS case confirmed anywhere in the state.

 

"It may be the calm before the storm. We don't know what's going on out in the wild," said Geoffrey Groocock, a professor working for Cornell University's Aquatic Animal Health Program, which tests diseased or suspicious-looking fish for the state.

 

The disease, viral hemorrhagic septicemia, causes fish to hemorrhage and destroys the organs that make blood cells. The virus has been identified in 20 freshwater species and has resulted at times in large fish kills, primarily in the Great Lakes. The virus presents no health risk to humans, officials have repeatedly said.

 

Last spring on Skaneateles Lake, hundreds of dead rock bass and smallmouth bass infected with VHS either floated to the surface or stayed on the bottom. A single lake trout, turned in by an angler, also tested positive.

 

In addition to Skaneateles Lake, the virus was detected last spring in sunfish in the Cayuga-Seneca Canal, in gobies and other fish in Lake Ontario and in a rainbow trout from the Little Salmon River (a tributary to Lake Ontario). The year before, there was a sizable walleye fish kill on Conesus Lake.

 

So why no VHS-caused fish kills this year?

 

Groocock and others point out that last year's spring was prematurely warm. Temperatures rose rapidly during the time when many fished were stressed physically from spawning. The resulting warmer water may have been more conducive to the spread of the virus.

 

This year, it's been a colder spring.