Fish die-off Lake Ontario - (virus)

[emmysue]

DEC investigating fish die-off on Lake Ontario

http://www.newswatch50.com/news/local/story.aspx?content_id=25670FDB-1773-4162-A909-8538F0603025

07/12/06

State wildlife scientists are trying to find out why several species of fish are dying off by the thousands in eastern Lake Ontario.

According to an Associated Press report, carp, smallmouth bass, sturgeon and other species have washed up onto the shore of Point Peninsula in Jefferson County. Birds have been feeding on the dead fish, and many of the birds including cormorants and seagulls have died as well.

A spokesman for the state Department of Environmental Conservation says the agency doesn't know yet what's causing the die-off. Specimen samples have been sent to Cornell University in Ithaca for testing.

The DEC official says experts suspect the fish are dying from a virus (viral hemorrhagic septicemia) that's new to the Great Lakes region. The same virus is believed to have caused the deaths of thousands of fish in Lake Ontario and the Saint Lawrence River in May.

Officials say the virus poses no health threat to humans.

[prepdeb]

Re: Fish die-off Lake Ontario - (virus)

exerpt from information on Viral Hemorrhagic Septicemia of Fishes at http://www.aquatext.com/images/diseases/vhs.htm

Epizootiology
Transmission
The VHS virus is readily transmissible to fish of all ages, and survivors of infection can become lifelong carriers that shed virus with urine and sex products. The virus ostensibly gains access to the fish through the secondary gill lamellae. Virus shed with sex products appears to be solely a surface contaminant of the egg and is readily dissipated. Although virus can be isolated from eggs for 3 to 4h after spawning, true vertical transmission has not been demonstrated. Experimentally, fish can be infected by cohabitation, immersion, intraperitoneal and intramuscular injection, brushing virus on the gills, and feeding (Jorgensen 1980; de Kinkelin and Castric 1982; de Kinkelin 1983; Castric and de Kinkelin 1984).

In Europe, the gray heron, Ardea cinerea, is known to be a mechanical vector of VHS virus (Olesen and Jorgensen 1982; Peters and Neukirch 1986), but the virus is inactivated in the gastrointestional tract of birds (Eskildsen and Jorgensen 1973). The virus is apparently not transmitted by parasitic vectors and, as judged from a study with the fruit fly Drosophila melanogaster, it does not replicate in insects (Bussereau et al. 1975).
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If this information is accurate, you wouldn't expect birds to die from eating the fish - if they died from VHSV.