Lake Erie Shiners

[KING ME]

Fishing: Virus Takes Shine Off Erie Shiners

By Deborah Weisberg, Pittsburgh Post-Gazette

Although Emerald shiners are Lake Erie's blessing, the bountiful bait fish also could be its curse.

In an effort to help stem the spread of a deadly virus in the Great Lakes, the Pennsylvania Fish and Boat Commission plans to quarantine live Lake Erie fish, including shiners, within the Erie watershed beginning in January with restrictions on commercial seiners.

Agency biologist Chuck Murray also said the commission is moving its steelhead spawning program from Tionesta to its Fairview hatchery near Erie, and has halted the collection of northern pike brood stock from Presque Isle Bay.

"We want to confine Erie fish to Erie," Murray said. "Shiners are the most worrisome, because of their sheer numbers."

Murray said commercial seiners will be notified next month when they apply for 2007 permits that they cannot sell bait outside the Erie watershed, while the commission's board, at its January meeting, will consider restricting the movement of live fish by recreational anglers -- a prospect fraught with enforcement headaches.

The commission actions come on the heels of a federal emergency order affecting how eight Great Lakes states and Canada sell and trade 37 species of live fish, from rainbow trout to smallmouth bass, considered at risk for viral hemorrhagic septisemia (VHS), a disease that causes fish to bleed to death. It is blamed for recent die-offs of yellow perch, pike, walleyes, suckers and other species in Erie and throughout the Great Lakes.

"This new strain is unique, because the die-offs have been bigger and have affected 14 new species within the past year," said T. J. Myers of the U.S. Agriculture Department's Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service.

VHS, which poses no threat to humans even when they eat diseased fish, first surfaced in the Pacific Northwest, where saltwater and anadramous species, such as salmon and herring, were affected. While it is assumed that ocean freighters brought the disease into the Great Lakes in ballast water, Myers said it also is possible that VHS was introduced through the natural migration of an infected fish.

Although APHIS froze the interstate commerce of at-risk species in an emergency order Oct. 24, it loosened restrictions last week under pressure from groups such as the American Sportfishing Association. APHIS will allow fish farms and hatcheries to ship species certified as VHS-free during periodic routine health inspections.

But wild-caught fish pose a problem, since some species such as muskies, aren't harvested enough for representative sampling, while shiners, a type of minnow, are netted so often and in such big numbers, inspections wouldn't be "meaningful," Myers said. Still, they are subject to APHIS restrictions, and that hamstrings those in the baitfish business.

"I haven't been able to buy a shiner in weeks," said Dan Page of Page's Sporting Goods in Warren, near the Allegheny Reservoir. "This is the time of year when the demand for shiners is at its peak. I usually go through 10 gallons of shiners a week until ice fishing season comes on. Then it's 20 gallons. Before all is said and done, I'll lose thousands of dollars."

Gary Heubel of Poor Richard's Bait and Tackle in Erie is one of 10 commercial anglers with a permit to seine for shiners, mostly to sell in his shops, although he sometimes augments his stock with bait from a Conneaut, Ohio, wholesaler. "I can't now, even though the guy's 10 miles down the road and getting shiners from the same lake," he said. "Isn't that ridiculous?"

Heubel said anything short of outlawing baitfish sales isn't going to do much to keep VHS in check.

"As a businessman, I'm crazy to say that, but it's the only way to solve the problem, period," he said. "I have no control over what people do with the minnows they buy from me once they leave my shop. I get a ton of people from West Virginia and other places because they love using shiners on the crappies back home. Everyone wants shiners."

Murray agrees that enforcement of individual anglers would be extremely difficult, and said the commission will get more mileage out of a major public awareness campaign it plans to launch in coming months about VHS and other pathogens and exotic species.

VHS typically shows up in spring, when fish are in close contact and stressed from winter and the rigors of the spawn. According to APHIS, the virus is passed through fish feces, urine, mucous, ovarian fluid and other matter. It has been found on the surface of newly hatched eggs, which can be disinfected in hatcheries, but not in the wild.