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USDA: A Bucket of Live Bait Can Carry Deadly Disease

  • Aug 24, 2010

As the last days of summer draw near, people who love to fish will be rushing off to their favorite lakes and streams to enjoy them. Many will be bringing along their trusty fishing gear and a bucket of live baitfish that they have caught in a stream near their house.

Unknowingly, they may be carrying more than baitfish to that inland lake or river. They could be transporting an infectious disease into a pristine body of water. That healthy looking bait could be carrying or infected with an invasive organism or viral hemorrhagic septicemia virus (VHS), an infectious disease that can rapidly kill fish, warns Kathleen Hartman, Ph.D., U.S. Department of Agriculture aquaculture epidemiologist.

“The movement and use of baitfish is one of the most significant ways to introduce and spread VHS,” says Hartman. “Because fish can be infected without showing outward signs of the disease, baitfish from a VHS contaminated body of water can be carried quite innocently to another which is VHS free.”

There is no cure or vaccination for VHS, she notes. “It thrives in colder waters and once it gets into those waters, it will stay. The best way to contain the virus is to take appropriate steps not to spread it.”

To that end, several states and the province of Ontario in Canada have implemented regulations pertaining to baitfish movement. Fishing enthusiasts in the Great Lakes region should only buy baitfish from dealers that test for VHS if they plan to transport them, says Hartman. “If you catch your own baitfish, please use it only in the waters where it was caught. Discard unused bait in receptacles that are provided near boat launches or in a secure trash location.”

Hartman also points out the VHS can hide in dirt and mud on your boat and in bilge and ballast water. “Wash your boat down, preferably with hot water and bleach, after every time it has been in the water and be sure to empty any bilge water before trailering it to another waterbody,” she says.

For more information on VHS and the easy steps that can prevent its spread visit www.FocusOnFishHealth.org.

Comments

Tue, Aug 31, 2010 Don Mitchel

Once a pond is created in the earth with rain, birds, frogs, fish, and the rest of nature it is wrong to try and insinuate the water is anything more than pond water. The web site you tout is no more than an add for the Arkansas fish farmers. I might like to add that when I used to have bait delivered to me, from Arkansas they had many kinds of fish on the same truck, grass carp (that were not sterile) for food industry, goldfish, game fish all being spread in different tanks as emptied. I have reciepts from sales of crayfish, goldfish,koi all brought from Arkansas on the same truck. An interesting, reading, if it has not been taken off line, is a copy of the "working group of 8", which is a meeting of the biggest fish farmers in the south and a member of the Federal government, during 2005 where they discuss their plans of moving fish across state lines when the Federal government did not endorse health certificates. They talk about having Arkansas declared a disease free zone. Paper work, filled out for certification certificates, outside of NY juridiction, traveling outside Arkansas jurisdiction, can not be proven to correlate to the same fish from the farm ponds inspected, and the farmers at the meeting even discuss this problem along with the need to address affluent and effluent water going in and out of the country with fish. The Arkansas fish farmers did not feel a point of destination manifest would be needed for baitfish traveling through interstate as long as it had an origin. odd? Without a point of destination manifest, the door is open for these fish to change hands again and again with more water changes and chemicals while in route. Back in the 1990's I quit wholesale of bait because the Arkansas fish were dying at the time when the tempature of their water was lowered. Different Virus turn on at different water tempature. At the time their was great concern about SVC. I have a brochure from one of the more prominent fish farmers, who was at this 2005 meeting. The brochure offered to sell all sorts of chemicals to anyone in the country with a visa card regardless of state laws. The part I found most interesting was not only would they sell anybody chemicals such as straight malithion, but they would send it through the mail. The information, was all provided to the NY DEC during the original formulation of their regulations with MRS. Clinton curtailing the use of NY's natural baitfish. The regulations in NY that Hillary Clinton helped the DEC form at the end of 2006 begining of 2007, have an uncanny way of being just like what was suggested by the southern fish farmers at their meeting in 2005. If Mrs. Clinton did not worry about virus in natural waters used in fish transportation around the country into NY , she will not care about it when negotiating trade and the environmental impact of ballast water.

Mon, Aug 30, 2010 John French

Don, The ponds are indeed outdoors, but they are filled only with well water. No surface water is used.

Fri, Aug 27, 2010 don mitchel

Interesting the areial shot of the outdoor ponds on www.safebaitfish.org Well water? once apon a time it may have been water from within the earth.

Fri, Aug 27, 2010 don

Sir I have imported bait from Arkansas and they raise it in out door ponds. How you came up with their using well water is a good "fish story". I Have Been THERE. They only farm pond test the fish in Arkansas before crossing state lines. The fish are then good for a year no matter what waters they swim in. I am in the industry now and get the health certificates from Pine Bluff AR, on a NY form. I have seen the milky water, polwogs, crayfish, dead fish, scales in the transport water. I am now allowed to hold these imported fish in waters from my ponds, as long as the fish in the tanks and the water pumped into hold these fish are inside a building, while the uninspect natural NY fish I can not sell are swimming around the pump I use, all with the approval of the depatment head of my local DEC area, as he has been at my location. Many bait shops in NY use natural waters from ponds, creeks,river,lakes to hold their baitfish before sale to the angler as I have wholesaled fish, I have seen it. Check NY regulation and you will see that this is allowed. Currently in NY fish are also raised in waste treatments ponds (Batavia) They do a pond sample inspection of just the fish for fish disease only. It is fact that the federal government dose not endorse these farm pond inspection done in AR , across state lines outside of NY jurisdiction or AR jurisdiction, and the truck drivers do add water in transit as they empty a tank at a delivery site in states along the way, then spread the fish from the full crowded tanks out into the empty ones before going to their next destination as anyone who has moved fish knows the more water the better. These trucks are all private owned. I have personelly supplied them with water in the past. These "farm pond inspected fish" are often released into holding tanks using NY natural waters recirculating back into NY waters, they are even exchanged in store parking lots, rest areas and on the side of the road from trucks as they pass through the state. My point is that the transport water needs to be disposed of properly in order to have any kind of validity to these fish certifications, we accept as is our states right.

Thu, Aug 26, 2010 John French

I get a little lost in parts of Don's essay, but I would like to refute one of his claims. Baitfish that come from Arkansas must meet the rigid inspection requirements of the State of NY. In addition, Arkansas baitfish are raised in well water under highly controlled conditions and most (including all that go to NY) are inspected and certified by the Arkansas Agriculture Department as free of important diseases and aquatic nuisance species. There is no conspiracy, just good healthy safe fish. The program is explained at www,safebaitfish.org

Tue, Aug 24, 2010 Don Mitchel NY

It is quite interesting that everyone talks about boat owners and anglers as the way to prevent disease. Yet a politician such as Hillary Clinton who was involved in formulating new regulations for baitfish in NY did not bother to worry about the natural water used and the chemicals added during transportation of baitfish across state lines, outside of NY jurisdiction before they are dumped into NY waters as long as they were farm pond inspected out of state. The Federal government will not endorse the health certificates for a once a year farm pond inspection in a different state that NY accepts. Now in NY you can have fish brought in from a state such as Arkansas, where they claim to produce 85% of the bait fish used in the US, dumped with natural waters filled with chemicals,dead fish scales, and invasive s into tanks being supplied by natural waters with the fish you can not sell swiming around the pump bringing water to the fish you can sell. Then a bucket of this water can be given with these fish by a bait dealer to take to any water body in the state. As a Senator from NY who overlooked protecting NY waters to keep the flow of bait fish into NY uniterupted from Arkansas, will she as our secretary of state bother to address the real problem causing disease and invasive s, ballast water when negotiating trade to bring cheap foreign manufactured goods to her former employer who has its parent headquarters in Arkansas. How about going after the politicians who are allowing foreign ships to bring foreign goods into our country with a carbon footprint and a dirty water trail, because one Senator, objected to national ballast water regulations passed 395-7 by the house, while the three highest officials in this administration were Senators.

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