For Release: April 4, 2007
Contact(s): Mike Staggs (60 267-0796 Bill Horns (60 266-8782
NRB acts to contain a deadly fish virus believed to be in Lake Michigan Anglers and boaters required to take precautions to prevent spread MADISON – To prevent a new and deadly fish virus from spreading to walleye, musky, yellow perch and other fish in Wisconsin inland waters, effective Saturday, April 7, anglers and boaters are required to take steps to help confine the virus to waters where it’s already found or suspected.
The state Natural Resources Board on Wednesday, April 4, unanimously passed emergency rules prohibiting anglers and boaters from moving live fish, dead fish, and water out of Wisconsin’s Great Lakes waters, the Mississippi River and those waters’ tributaries up to the first dam.
Wisconsin officials believe Viral hemorrhagic septicemia virus, or VHS, is likely present in these waters or will soon be because they are connected to waters where the virus has been found.
VHS is not a threat to human health but it caused major fish kills in 2005 and 2006 in lakes St. Clair, Erie, Ontario and the St. Lawrence River, and the virus was discovered in Lake Huron fish in February, according to Mike Staggs, Wisconsin’s fisheries director.
“This deadly, invasive virus is a very serious threat to our fisheries and to Wisconsin’s $2.3 billion fishing industry,” Staggs says. “We don’t want anglers and boaters to accidentally spread it from where it already is, or from where we think it already is.”
Because the virus can infect so many different ages and species of fish, VHS could spread more quickly in inland lakes, which are much smaller than the Great Lakes, potentially devastating fish populations and fishing opportunities. Walleye, spotted musky, yellow perch, blue gill and northern pike are all susceptible to the virus, as are common bait species such as emerald and spot-tail shiners.
The rules, which are similar to measures other Great Lakes states have taken, require anglers and boaters to:
Be careful with live bait. If you want to use crayfish, frogs, fish, or fish eggs as bait, they must be purchased from a Wisconsin bait dealer OR captured legally in the water you’ll be fishing OR captured in an inland lake or stream and used in another inland lake or stream. Leaches, worms, and insects are OK.
Be careful with dead bait. If you want to use dead fish, fish eggs, crayfish, or frogs they must be used only on Lake Michigan (including Green Bay and tributaries up to the first dam) OR used on the inland lake or stream where it was captured OR preserved by means other than refrigeration or freezing, neither of which is assured of killing the virus. Don’t take live fish off the Great Lakes or Mississippi River. You may not take live fish or fish eggs (including both bait and game fish) away from Lake Michigan, Lake Superior, the Mississippi River or any of their tributaries upstream to the first dam or barrier impassable to fish. This includes fish caught and kept in livewells, leftover bait, or any minnows or fish eggs being collected for bait. There are some limited exceptions; contact your DNR office for information for those situations. Drain your boat and live well and empty your bait bucket before you leave the landing. After fishing or boating on the waters of the Great Lakes or Mississippi River (including tributaries up to the first dam), you must must immediately drain all water from the boat and boat trailer, bilge, live well and bait bucket. Place unused bait in the trash. Notify DNR if you see a fish with hemorrhages on its skin. Call your local DNR fish biologist to help the agency monitor state fish populations for the virus. DNR is testing wild fish from Lake Michigan and Lake Superior this spring and will respond to fish kills. “The states in the lower Great Lakes didn’t know about the virus and how it was spread until it was too late,” Staggs says. “Anglers and others were already accidentally moving the virus around. We now have the benefit of knowing that the virus is likely here and that we must take steps to prevent its further spread. We truly need anglers’ and boaters’ help in protecting Wisconsin’s fishing future, the health of our waters, and the local economies they anchor.”
DNR fisheries and other staff who work on the Great Lakes are taking the same prevention steps with their boats, and are disinfecting all eggs collected from Great Lakes fish before they are brought into state hatcheries, and are taking other measures to keep the virus from being accidentally spread to wild and hatchery-raised fish.
Until recently, the virus was known to be present only on the East and West coasts of the United States, in Europe and in Japan, may have arrived in the Great Lakes in ballast water from a commercial ship or through the movement of wild fish. It infects cells lining blood vessels, causing severe hemorrhaging and death. So far, most fish kills due to the virus in the Great Lakes occurred right after ice out, continuing until water temperatures reached 59 degrees Fahrenheit.
Learn more about VHS by visiting DNR’s Web site: Fishing Wisconsin: Fish Health.
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Last Revised: April 4, 2007
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