Disease causing fish to bleed from eyes, faces, fins & tails
Aug 21, 2013 5:03:05 GMT -5
Post by popcorn on Aug 21, 2013 5:03:05 GMT -5
Scientists raise concerns of Disease causing fish to bleed from Eyes, Faces, Fins & Tails In Pacific Ocean & Canada
Independent fisheries scientist Alexandra Morton is raising concerns about a disease she says is spreading through Pacific herring causing fish to hemorrhage. Ms. Morton has called on the federal Department of Fisheries and Oceans to investigate, saying it could cause large-scale herring kills and infect wild salmon, which feed heavily on herring. ”I’ve been seeing herring with bleeding fins,” Ms. Morton said Monday. “Two days ago I did a beach seine on Malcolm Island [near Port McNeill on northern Vancouver Island] and I got approximately 100 of these little herring and they were not only bleeding from their fins, but their bellies, their chins, their eyeballs. These are very, very strong disease symptoms.” Ms. Morton, a researcher and environmental advocate who campaigns against fish farms, said she caught some herring with similar symptoms in beach seine nets in 2011, but was unable to get DFO to investigate. The problem seems much worse this time, she said, with all of the herring she caught in the recent netting showing disease signs. ”It was 100 per cent … I couldn’t find any that weren’t bleeding to some degree. And they were schooling with young sockeye,” said Ms. Morton, who suspects the disease is viral hemorrhagic septicemia virus. Dr. Gary Marty, fish pathologist with the animal health centre for the B.C. Ministry of Environment, said VHSV and a second disease, viral erythrocytic necrosis, or VEN, are the two most likely suspects. But he said both diseases have been on the West Coast for a long time and it is too soon to ring any alarm bells. He said Ms. Morton could be seeing a common, localized outbreak that might just fade away. ”You’d have to have more information or more fish dying” before concluding there is a serious disease outbreak, Dr. Marty said. ”There has been … research that shows it probably remains in the [herring] population all the time, but at a very low level. So in that sense it would be similar to influenza in people or just a cold virus in people,” he said. “It will affect the population in late winter and early spring and then as the fish get more food available in the summer their condition improves and the virus goes away.” Dr. Marty said limited outbreaks of the two diseases are not necessarily a bad thing. ”In some respect for the population it’s actually good to have small outbreaks, often because even though it may kill a few individual fish, the survivors are then immune from the disease and actually the population can be stronger as a result,” he said. Dr. Marty said he was aware of Ms. Morton’s catch of apparently diseased herring, but hadn’t been officially notified by DFO of the incident and had not begun any research himself. DFO officials weren’t available for comment Monday. NLorena Hamer, a spokesperson for the Herring Conservation and Research Society, a non-profit founded by the herring fishing industry, said the symptoms described by Ms. Morton sound like VHSV but scientific confirmation is needed. ”I do hope that DFO is following up on this – it would be good to get confirmation of the disease, and more information on the extent of the infection,” Ms. Hamer said in an e-mail. She noted that a paper published in a recent issue of the international journal Veterinary Microbiology indicates that VHSV is a disease that can spread between species. The paper, by researchers from Canada’s Pacific Biological Station, in Nanaimo, and the U.S. Western Fisheries Research Center in Washington State, states that farmed Atlantic salmon can develop VHS and transmit it to Pacific herring. ”Viral hemorrhagic septicemia is considered a serious disease of wild Pacific herring, causing large scale fish kills,” states the paper.
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VANCOUVER — Scores of bloodied fish found in the water off northeastern Vancouver Island are alarming a BC marine biologist, who says Fisheries and Oceans Canada (FOC) is ignoring the problem. Vancouver Island marine biologist Alexandra Morton first spotted herrings bleeding from their dorsal and pelvic fins in 2011 and began monitoring the phenomenon, which she suspects is a disease or viral infection. Using a seine net, she dragged up several hundred of the fish this past weekend and found the apparent infection had spread – instead of their usual silver colour the fish had eyes, tails, underbellies, gills and faces plastered with the sickly red colour. ”I have never seen fish that looked this bad,” Morton told QMI Agency on Sunday. “If you look only in one place, you really can’t say whether it’s happening along the whole coast … the concern is these are migratory fish. They don’t stay in one place.” In June, the affected fish were only found in eastern Johnstone Strait, but have since spread to Alert Bay and Sointula, she said. Humpback whales, eagles, chinook and coho salmon are known to eat Pacific herring, further adding to the risk should the infection be contagious. Morton has several theories, including three European-based viruses she’ll be personally testing the fish for. Another theory is it’s caused by the local viral hemorrhagic septicemia virus – a deadly disease transferable between species. According to e-mails from FOC, the federal authority had asked the marine biologist to send in 20 to 30 herring in September 2011, saying that would be “more than sufficient for the lab to look for clinical signs of disease and provide sufficient diagnostics.” She did and never heard back. ”These are very strong disease symptoms that I’m simply asking (the ministry) to tell us, in a verifiable way, what is wrong with these fish?” Morton said, adding the answer could be found using an existing test that examines the immune systems of fish. FOC officials did not respond to a request for comment Sunday.
read more:
www.sunnewsnetwork.ca/sunnews/canada/archives/2013/08/20130812-075552.html
Independent fisheries scientist Alexandra Morton is raising concerns about a disease she says is spreading through Pacific herring causing fish to hemorrhage. Ms. Morton has called on the federal Department of Fisheries and Oceans to investigate, saying it could cause large-scale herring kills and infect wild salmon, which feed heavily on herring. ”I’ve been seeing herring with bleeding fins,” Ms. Morton said Monday. “Two days ago I did a beach seine on Malcolm Island [near Port McNeill on northern Vancouver Island] and I got approximately 100 of these little herring and they were not only bleeding from their fins, but their bellies, their chins, their eyeballs. These are very, very strong disease symptoms.” Ms. Morton, a researcher and environmental advocate who campaigns against fish farms, said she caught some herring with similar symptoms in beach seine nets in 2011, but was unable to get DFO to investigate. The problem seems much worse this time, she said, with all of the herring she caught in the recent netting showing disease signs. ”It was 100 per cent … I couldn’t find any that weren’t bleeding to some degree. And they were schooling with young sockeye,” said Ms. Morton, who suspects the disease is viral hemorrhagic septicemia virus. Dr. Gary Marty, fish pathologist with the animal health centre for the B.C. Ministry of Environment, said VHSV and a second disease, viral erythrocytic necrosis, or VEN, are the two most likely suspects. But he said both diseases have been on the West Coast for a long time and it is too soon to ring any alarm bells. He said Ms. Morton could be seeing a common, localized outbreak that might just fade away. ”You’d have to have more information or more fish dying” before concluding there is a serious disease outbreak, Dr. Marty said. ”There has been … research that shows it probably remains in the [herring] population all the time, but at a very low level. So in that sense it would be similar to influenza in people or just a cold virus in people,” he said. “It will affect the population in late winter and early spring and then as the fish get more food available in the summer their condition improves and the virus goes away.” Dr. Marty said limited outbreaks of the two diseases are not necessarily a bad thing. ”In some respect for the population it’s actually good to have small outbreaks, often because even though it may kill a few individual fish, the survivors are then immune from the disease and actually the population can be stronger as a result,” he said. Dr. Marty said he was aware of Ms. Morton’s catch of apparently diseased herring, but hadn’t been officially notified by DFO of the incident and had not begun any research himself. DFO officials weren’t available for comment Monday. NLorena Hamer, a spokesperson for the Herring Conservation and Research Society, a non-profit founded by the herring fishing industry, said the symptoms described by Ms. Morton sound like VHSV but scientific confirmation is needed. ”I do hope that DFO is following up on this – it would be good to get confirmation of the disease, and more information on the extent of the infection,” Ms. Hamer said in an e-mail. She noted that a paper published in a recent issue of the international journal Veterinary Microbiology indicates that VHSV is a disease that can spread between species. The paper, by researchers from Canada’s Pacific Biological Station, in Nanaimo, and the U.S. Western Fisheries Research Center in Washington State, states that farmed Atlantic salmon can develop VHS and transmit it to Pacific herring. ”Viral hemorrhagic septicemia is considered a serious disease of wild Pacific herring, causing large scale fish kills,” states the paper.
endtimeheadlines.wordpress.com/2013/08/20/scientists-raise-concerns-of-disease-causing-fish-to-bleed-from-eyes-faces-fins-tails-in-pacific-ocean-canada/
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VANCOUVER — Scores of bloodied fish found in the water off northeastern Vancouver Island are alarming a BC marine biologist, who says Fisheries and Oceans Canada (FOC) is ignoring the problem. Vancouver Island marine biologist Alexandra Morton first spotted herrings bleeding from their dorsal and pelvic fins in 2011 and began monitoring the phenomenon, which she suspects is a disease or viral infection. Using a seine net, she dragged up several hundred of the fish this past weekend and found the apparent infection had spread – instead of their usual silver colour the fish had eyes, tails, underbellies, gills and faces plastered with the sickly red colour. ”I have never seen fish that looked this bad,” Morton told QMI Agency on Sunday. “If you look only in one place, you really can’t say whether it’s happening along the whole coast … the concern is these are migratory fish. They don’t stay in one place.” In June, the affected fish were only found in eastern Johnstone Strait, but have since spread to Alert Bay and Sointula, she said. Humpback whales, eagles, chinook and coho salmon are known to eat Pacific herring, further adding to the risk should the infection be contagious. Morton has several theories, including three European-based viruses she’ll be personally testing the fish for. Another theory is it’s caused by the local viral hemorrhagic septicemia virus – a deadly disease transferable between species. According to e-mails from FOC, the federal authority had asked the marine biologist to send in 20 to 30 herring in September 2011, saying that would be “more than sufficient for the lab to look for clinical signs of disease and provide sufficient diagnostics.” She did and never heard back. ”These are very strong disease symptoms that I’m simply asking (the ministry) to tell us, in a verifiable way, what is wrong with these fish?” Morton said, adding the answer could be found using an existing test that examines the immune systems of fish. FOC officials did not respond to a request for comment Sunday.
read more:
www.sunnewsnetwork.ca/sunnews/canada/archives/2013/08/20130812-075552.html
