Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: MONDAY, March 20, 1995 TAG: 9503220003
SECTION: SPORTS PAGE: B-6 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: BILL COCHRAN
DATELINE: LENGTH: Medium
Now comes word that an alarming disease may have wiped out as many as 90 percent of the rainbows. It is called whirling disease, and it has anglers in a spin.
While it is not the kind of thing you want to hear about as a new trout season opens, it turns out that whirling disease isn't limited to Montana. It is in Virginia, too.
Trout Unlimited, one of the finest conservation organizations in the nation, says the disease could lead to an environmental disaster by wiping out hundreds of thousands of wild fish wherever they live.
Many anglers in Virginia recently received a letter from Charles Gauvin, president of Arlington-based Trout Unlimited, asking them to send a petition to Gov. George Allen and a contribution to Trout Unlimited to help control the disease.
"This is an emergency appeal," said Gauvin.
The petition to Allen states: "I urge you to take immediate action to study the spread of whirling disease in our state's hatcheries, rivers and streams." It calls for reforming hatchery programs and for giving wild fish populations more protection.
Gary Martel, chief of the fish division of the Department of Game and Inland Fisheries, was taken back by the Trout Unlimited mailing, which had an adversary tone. So were TU leaders in Virginia, who hadn't been informed that Gauvin would ask anglers to write the governor.
While Martel doesn't deny that whirling disease is a huge problem in the West, it is nothing new in the East.
"It has been in the Eastern United States for decades," he said. "We have been working to manage it in Virginia since the mid-'70s, when it was first diagnosed here. It is not a significant concern here, as it is in the Western states."
Whirling disease deforms the skeletons of infected fish, causing them to swim in circles when alarmed. It makes feeding and escape from predators difficult.
The disease entered Virginia's hatchery system at the Marion hatchery when infected fish were stocked upstream by a private operation, Martel said. "I believe it was in 1978. I might be off by a year," he said. "When it took off, it was real bad. We didn't know how to handle it."
In time, hatchery operators recognized that the problems occurred when young fish were stocked in outside ponds at Marion. When that practice was changed, difficulties with the disease were overcome.
Permits now are required when trout are stocked by private parties, and none is issued for drainages near hatcheries, said Martel. The practice of stocking hatchery trout into wild populations also has been curbed, he said.
"I have to admit that we do stock some brook trout over brook trout, but not rainbow trout over brook trout," Martel said.
All trout are vulnerable, but wild rainbows are particularly susceptible to whirling disease, officials say.
Trout Unlimited has charged that some states' officials have a cavalier attitude toward the problem, and continue to stock infected fish rather than destroying millions of hatchery trout. The organization especially has lashed out at Colorado.
"It is time to put more emphasis on restoring and protecting the habitat that supports wild, naturally reproducing fish," said Gauvin.
Some of the funds TU is requesting will be used to pursue litigation in states where officials refuse to take action against the spread of the disease, Gauvin promised.
by CNB