Fish

Dr. Bob Durborow, aquaculture extension specialist at Kentucky State University, said the white bass he examined had bacterial infections which contributed to their condition, but was likely not the primary cause of the fish kill.
Durborow sent samples of the fish to the Warm Springs National Fish Hatchery in Georgia for additional testing for viruses. The results of the tests may not be available until later this summer.
Gerry Buynak, assistant director of fisheries for the Kentucky Department of Fish and Wildlife Resources, said anglers first observed thousands of dead and struggling white bass in Cave Run Lake the weekend of June 8. No other species were affected.
Many of the white bass had marks on their bodies, the cause of which was later determined to be bacterial infection. The fish kill affected white bass throughout the 8,270-acre lake, which is located near Morehead.
Buynak noted a similar white bass fish kill occurred in the lake in the early 2000s. However, that fish kill only affected larger fish. This week's fish kill affected white bass ranging in size from 6 to 16 inches.
To help maintain the fishery, biologists stocked 64,000 fingerling-sized white bass in Cave Run Lake on June 13.

Pedersen slices open a frozen haddock to reveal the mass of salmon feed pellets in its stomach. This fish was caught in the vicinity of salmon farms in Vestre Jakobselv, Pedersen said. (Photo: Christi Turner)

VESTRE JAKOBSELV: The president of Norges Kystfiskarlag, the Coastal Fishermen's Association, is more concerned with the effects of salmon farming on wild fish populations than he is with the new quota recommendations.
Arne Pedersen is not too concerned about the new quota recommendations for cod and haddock.  It isn't the quantity of fish that worries him: it's their health.
"This is not natural, this is poison," Pedersen said, sawing open a frozen haddock to expose the contents of its stomach. 
The stomach is filled with a brown, fibrous substance that resembles feed pellets, such as those used in the salmon farms near where Pedersen said he caught the fish.  He produces another frozen haddock, saws it open as well, and the contents of the stomach are the same.
As president of Norges Kystfiskarlag, the Norwegian Coastal Fishermen's Association, Pedersen represents more than 1,000 fishermen along the coast of Norway from his home in Vestre Jakobselv, in eastern Finnmark.  Part and parcel to protecting the livelihoods of coastal fishermen, he said, is to protect the health of the fisheries they rely on.
But Pedersen said that he has had no response from authorities when he has brought his complaints to bear.  He suspects it has to do with the enormous economic influence of the salmon farming industry in Norway: salmon farming comprises 80 percent of the Norwegian aquaculture industry.  More than 95 percent of Norway's aquaculture production is exported, destined for more than 130 countries.
"There's big money in salmon farms, and they do not speak about this conflict with the coastal fishermen in the areas where they farm," Pedersen said.  "They have a big troop of lobbyists, national and international."
The controversy surrounding the effects of salmon farming on the environment is not a new one.  A vast amount of research has been conducted on the issue, which in recent years has reached a national scale in countries such as Chile, Canada, and the United States.  In Norway and elsewhere, cited impacts include a decrease in wild salmon populations due to the influence of escaped farmed salmon, and the spread of deadly sea lice ("lakselus", in Norwegian) and diseases throughout local wild fish populations. 
Further down the coast, researchers from the Norwegian Institute of Nature Studies and the Institute for Marine Research found in a 2010 study that wild fish near salmon farms had high concentrations of organohalogenated contaminants (OCs) in their systems –chemicals such as polychlorinated biphenyls (PCBs) so toxic that their production was banned by the Stockholm Convention on Persistent Organic Pollutants; and polybrominated diphenyl ethers, a type of flame retardant known as PBDEs.  A total of 45 percent of the fish nearby salmon farms were found to have feed pellets in their stomachs.  The pellets fall through the salmon farm pens and accumulate on the sea floor, and are then consumed by wild fish in the vicinity.  The control fish in the study were found to have no salmon pellets in their system, and up to 50 percent less OCs and PBDEs than the fish nearby salmon farms.
Although salmon farming companies and feed pellet producers tend not to disclose the precise contents of salmon feed pellets, scientists and advocates report that most pellets in the global salmon farming industry contain chemicals such as those indicated in the study, among others.
Pedersen is unaware of any studies that have been conducted within the fjords of Vestre Jakobselv and the surrounding area, but he is eager to see definitive research on what the effects of the chemicals from salmon feed pellets might be on the wild fish.  He said that he has strong suspicions that for wild fish nearby the salmon pens, the chemicals are disrupting their reproduction cycles.
Indeed, the 2010 study recommends further research into this very issue.  But Pedersen is not hopeful this will happen any time soon in his region.
"At this moment, the fishermen catching wild fish, we are on the defensive," he said.  "But in the long term, we have to stay focused on this issue." 
What the Black-Legged Kittiwake can teach us about mercury A study showing that high levels of mercury might prevent a Svalbard bird from breeding could have rippling implications for other large mammals, including humans, that live in the mercury-rich Arctic.
Spilled oil covers tundra rivers Environmentalists say that a state of emergency must be declared after at least 500 tons of oil spilled into local rivers from an oil facility in the Komi Republic.
In Barents Cooperation, a question about environment The new Kirkenes Declaration has environment as a top priority. Still, environmental NGOs fear for green cooperation in the Barents Region.

In an article published last Thursday, 13th June, we made it public that the Salmon & Trout Association Scotland had revealed that sea-bed monitoring under Scottish salmon farms reveals breaches of Environmental Quality Standards at nearly one in five fish farms for residues of sea-lice treatments toxic to lobster, crabs and prawns.
Information obtained under Freedom of Information by the Salmon & Trout Association Scotland (S&TAS) from the Scottish Environment Protection Agency (SEPA) shows that toxic pollution is carrying on unabated despite the requirement to meet set environmental protection standards.
We said – and hold – that SEPA has a case to answer for the light touch regulation it deploys in this context.
SEPA statement
A spokesperson for the Scottish Environment Protection Agency (SEPA) says: 'We refute these claims as they are based on figures which are inaccurate. Although evidence of sites exceeding our environmental standards is of interest to SEPA, and may lead to further discussion or investigation, the low level of the breaches, and the fact that almost 90% of sites are within our standards, indicates that SEPA is very much in control of the use of Slice.
'We are concerned that the repeated misinterpretation of raw aquaculture data is painting a more negative picture than actually exists. Supplying the data and then having to correct such inaccuracies is particularly resource-intensive and uses up a significant amount of time which would be better spent resolving genuine issues.'
Information which SEPA says clarifies the data:
As is the risk with reports such as this, the presentation of data is somewhat misleading.
SEPA supplied data from 146 sets of sediment sampling and analysis. Some of these were duplicates from individual sites and, therefore, the data only represents results from 133 sites.
There also appears to be some misunderstanding in the S&TA's interpretation of our standards. SEPA accepts that an area around a fish farm, known as the footprint, will exhibit some degree of impact from the farm's operations. SEPA sets a standard for the maximum concentration of 'Slice' residues that must be met at the edge of the footprint of the farm – usually 100m from the cages.
This is known as our 'far field' standard, or Environmental Quality Standard (EQS), and is designed to protect the environment and other important commercial species such as crabs and lobsters. SEPA also seeks to measure concentrations of residues at the edge of the cages, but this is used for other purposes, such as determining monitoring strategies, as opposed to the protection of the environment. The far field EQS has a good deal of precaution built-in, meaning that environmental effects from minor exceedances are highly improbable.
Of the 133 sites, only 15 (11.3%) showed sediment residues of Slice in excess of our far field standard.
The degree of exceedance is also important before drawing conclusions on the significance of results or potential environmental effects. The analyses are carried out at 10ths of a part per billion. Therefore, there has to be a reasonable margin of error in the results. For this reason, SEPA is unlikely to take substantive action against sites or analyses displaying values slightly above our EQS, whereas significant breaches are more likely to result in action being taken. For example, values of 10x our standards would be considered serious and lead to the site being downgraded in our assessment scheme and could lead to licence variations to reduce impacts. Values of 2-10x our standard would be recognised as likely to be within, or close, to the margin of error in the analysis and would require less significant action.
For the 15 sites showing breaches of standards, the scale of exceedances are as follows:
7 exceeded by less than 2x
8 exceeded by 2 – 5.22x
While the higher values could certainly lead to further scrutiny by SEPA, they are not results that would precipitate immediate, serious action by the Agency.
Salmon & Trout Association Scotland response
This is a statement from Guy Linley-Adams, solicitor to the Salmon & Trout Association Scotland in response to the SEPA claims.
'The S&TAS recognised that there are duplicate samples for a handful of the farms, but since only one of the farms reported as exceeding EQS or trigger values was a duplicate (Ardgour), the percentage of farms reported as 'breaching' in the S&TAS press release should, if we accept SEPA's arguments,  be higher not lower than stated. But no doubt SEPA would have criticised us for failing to take into account the duplicates if we had not done so.
'SEPA appears to be suggesting that a breach of the inner field trigger (ie the sea bed sampled at the cages) is not something that needs to concern anyone too much – but, as SEPA has previously acknowledged, this inner field figure is set to protect sediment re-worker fauna, mainly those few species of organic pollution-tolerant worms that consume the organic detritus that accumulates under a fishfarm, without which the sea-bed would be even more grossly polluted by feed and faeces under the cages than it is already under most farms.
'As to EQSs, all EQSs are set at a precautionary level for a valid scientific reason. Napier University's Review for the Scottish Executive (2002) Review And Synthesis Of The Environmental Impacts Of Aquaculture stated of emamectin benzoate that "there is relatively little information available on the toxicity of this chemical to marine benthic invertebrates in particular, and little is known about the potential long-term impacts of this chemical on the marine environment." The EQS was set in 1999.
'This is why there is a safety margin in the EQS, not so SEPA can use it to justify downplaying breaches of 2x or 3x the EQS. An EQS has a safety margin built in for a reason – usually that the ecotoxicological basis of the EQS itself is not always that certain when the EQS is first set by the scientists – it is not something that should be routinely traded upon, permitting regular exceedances  because it is somehow considered in some way 'probably alright' to do so.
'As to margins of error in the values determined, there may well be margins of error, as with all sample analyses of residues, but SEPA seem happy to use these figures in their own reports (such as the annual Results of Screening Surveys reports, available online from SEPA) and particularly where the figures (presumably with such margins of error in them) are below the EQS, SEPA is content to use them to suggest that everything is satisfactory at a particular site.
'If the errors in sampling emamectin in sediments are that bad, then SEPA should assume a certain number of the lower values it records or receives, that are  just below the EQS are, in fact, 'false negatives' and generally be a little more precautionary in their view of what the data shows.
'As to the accusation of repeated misinterpretation, S&TAS refutes that completely  and would suggest that perhaps SEPA should itself publish an analysis of the chemical residue data it receives from fish-farmers, and not just its very small audit sampling programme, rather than the S&TAS and the public having to rely on making freedom of information requests.
'Regulation 4 of the Environmental Information (Scotland) Regulations 2004 places a duty on all Scottish public authorities (SEPA included) in relation to the 'active dissemination of environmental information'. Specifically, Regulation 4 (1) requires SEPA to "… take reasonable steps to organise and keep up to date the environmental information, relevant to its functions, which it holds and at least the types of information listed in paragraph (2), with a view to the active and systematic dissemination of that information to the public …….". Paragraph (2) of Regulation 4 gives the types of information referred to in paragraph (1) and includes "(e) data or summaries of data derived from the monitoring of activities that affect or are likely to affect the environment". That would seem to cover this fish farmer-reported data.'
Mr Linley-Adams suggestion '…that perhaps SEPA should itself publish an analysis of the chemical residue data it receives from fish-farmers' is the simple and obvious solution to this dispute.
The publication of this data would make the picture perfectly clear and would authoritatively inform the concerned public of the extent of the sea bed polution from sea lice chemical drenching with Slice.
It is in everyone's interests that this should be done without delay, not least in the interests of the salmon farms anxious to restore their credibility in a situation  where SEPA insists that there is no pollution worthy of variation of licence to a farm.
Note: The original article on this matter, published on 13th June 2013, is online here.
This entry was posted in Angling, Animal Welfare, Business, Community News, Environment, Farming, Marine Environment, Politics, Regeneration, Water and tagged Argyll, cages, chemical residue, crabs, debris, detritus, EQS, far field, Guy Linley Adams, infestatin, inner field, lobsters, margin of error, monitoring data, rebuttal, refute, response, s&tas, salmon, salmon farm, salmon trout association scotland, sea bed residues, sea lice, SEPA, sepa publish chemical residue data, slice, small sample, solicitor, statement, suggestion, toxic. Bookmark the permalink.
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Dr. David Scarfe	11:51 PM (13 hours ago)
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June 15, 2013

New nonlethal test developed to detect fish virus

Ithaca, NY, USA – Cornell University, College of Veterinary Medicine researchers have successfully identified the presence of a deadly virus - the viral hemorrhagic septicemia virus (VHSV) - by using techniques that are not lethal to fish.

The current method to test if a body of water has infected fish requires sampling the major organs from many indigenous fish, because of concerns that less invasive samples might not be sensitive enough to detect the virus. In a study published in March's Journal of Veterinary Diagnostic Investigation (25:2), VHSV was indeed detected from fin and gill tissue biopsies, which cause little harm to collect.

"We were concerned about how many fish we were sampling for surveillance," said graduate student Emily Cornwell, first author of the study. "Up until this point, all of our sampling was lethal. We want to avoid taking fish that are important for sport or that are protected." Because the virus can span multiple regions, thousands of fish are typically tested, said co-author Rod Getchell, Ph.D. '02, senior research associate in microbiology and immunology.

Fish infected with VHSV display signs of external and internal bleeding, and commonly die within a few weeks. VHSV infection remains incurable, so minimizing its presence is paramount. Testing fish for the European strains of VHSV from samples collected nonlethally has been possible since 2009. However, "The Great Lakes genotype has only been known since 2005, so its pathogenesis has not been as well-studied," said Cornwell. "Even though the viruses are similar, they have different hosts they can infect."

This less harmful sampling will allow for more thorough and long-term VHSV studies, such as tracking the disease's progression. "Fish can be asymptomatic, but then the infection can flare up. There are a lot of intricacies about the course of disease we don't understand," said Cornwell, who is in her fifth year of the dual DVM/PhD program at Cornell.

To test whether the Great Lakes VHSV strain could be detected from less invasive samples, the researchers collected small clips of tissue from the fins and gills of fish injected with VHSV. RNA extracted from fins and gills revealed a viral presence as successfully as RNA from several internal organs -- the current, but lethal, sample.

The traditional method also only successfully identified the virus about 50 percent of the time in one of the fish types used in the study, even though the fish were exposed to a million copies of virus. "The traditional viral isolation technique is not as sensitive, which is why we chose to inject the fish -- that way, we knew for sure that all of the fish were exposed," said Cornwell.

Regulations dictate that fish must be tested using the traditional viral isolation method, said Getchell. "For example, if you want to move fish from the Great Lakes -- a restricted area, you will have to use the approved techniques. The [new] molecular techniques, even though they're more sensitive, are not part of the regulations yet," said Getchell. Getchell remains hopeful that this study will help "tip the world in the molecular direction. The evidence is mounting, so, slowly, the rules will change."

See http://vdi.sagepub.com/content/25/2/203.abstract for the abstract of the publication mentioned.

KUWAIT, June 15 (KUNA) -- Environment Public Authority (EPA) has carried out a surveillance of beaches opposing Chest Hospital and Maternity Hospital following discovery of dead fish near these beaches.
A team from EPA's water pollution monitoring department noticed, yesterday and today, scattered quantities of dead fish but then concluded that they were dead for long time and not recently, EPA said in a statement Saturday.
EPA said it contacted the municipality to clean the beaches, asserting keenness to follow up any reports of similar incidents to preserve the environment. (end) zak.bs KUNA 152107 Jun 13NNNN

CIV is often a uniquemember of your Iridoviridae, since it is definitely the only member, containing putative iap genes. Three CIV ORFs are actually recognized that display 17. 5 19. 5% identity and 22. 9 40. 6% similarity in amino acid sequence to the functional IAP 3 protein of Cydia pomonella granulovirus. On the other hand, only 193R consists of the two a BIR domain Vortioxetine and also a RING finger domain, when 157L and 332L consist of only a RING finger domain and may, consequently, not be practical as inhibitors of apoptosis. The aim with the latest work is to investigate no matter whether CIV 193R without a doubt encodes an anti apoptotic protein preventing virus induced apoptosis early in infection. CIV replicates in many different cell lines together with individuals derived from Bombyx mori, such as SPC BM 36 cells. When these cells are infected using a higher dose of CIV, vesicles resembling apoptotic bodies are made at 24 h p.

i.. Nevertheless, these bodies disappear at later times p. i.. At three days the infected cells seem to broaden and type intracellular vacuoles as in comparison with mock infected cells. With the end of infection the cells necrotize. This is often in contrast to cells taken care of with actinomycin D, exactly where apoptotic bodies Immune system are current in abundance in excess of a long time period. Since the formation of apoptotic bodies has also been viewed upon infection of fish cells from the vertebrate iridovirus, red sea bream iridovirus, the DNA was extracted from infected SPC BM 36 cells and subjected to DNA fragmentation analysis. Complete cellular DNA of CIV contaminated cells was purified at distinctive occasions p. i. and analyzed by agarose gel electrophoresis along with DNA of actinomycin D induced apoptotic SPC BM 36 cells.

The DNA of cells handled with deubiquitinating enzyme inhibitors actinomycin D showed the classical DNA ladder, whereas CIV infected SPC BM 36 cells did not. Computational examination from the CIV genome indicated that ORF 193R, positioned at nucleotide position 82,521 to 83,144 from the genome, is often a putative iap gene. The CIV iap ORF contains 624 bp and encodes a putative protein of 208 amino acids by using a predicted molecular mass of 22. 8 kDa. Ordinarily, IAPs incorporate one or a lot more so named Cys/His BIR domains represented by a GX9 11CX2CX8 10E/DX5HX3 6C domain, and often a carboxy terminal RING finger. On the other hand, a RING domain is not really often required for IAP perform. CIV ORF193R incorporates a single BIR domain with the N terminal portion of the protein along with a RING finger domain at the C terminus.

This ORF was designated as CIV iap on account of the sequence homology with other iaps recognized previously in CpGV, AcMNPV, Orgyia pseudotsugata MNPV, Epyphias postvittana MNPV, Hyphantria cunea NPV and Amsacta moorei entomopoxvirus.

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Galway Bay fm newsroom - Marine Institute testing carried out following the discovery of dead fish on Loughrea Lake last month (May) has found no significant bacteria or viral disease.
Samples were taken and sent for labortatory analysis after 100 dead perch were recovered on May 12th.
A spokesperson for Inland Fisheries Ireland says the cause of the fish kill is not clear, however it is quite likely to be just stress-related and associated with spawning.
Fish can get stressed during spawning time resulting in the weakening of their immune systems.
A statement adds that the number of fish killed was quite small in terms of the stock in the lake and other species were not impacted.
Inland Fisheries concludes that Loughrea Lake has produced good trout fishing in recent weeks so it appears to be an isolated incident.

Please bear with us while we re-organise our new site - we've made it a little slicker and a lot faster - come back soon to see the finished product.

ANALYSIS - The key to disease prevention is the maintenance of good fish welfare among the stock according to Dr Sunil Kadri the managing director of Europharma Scotland and Aquaculture Innovation.
Dr Kadri, speaking at a recent Federation of Veterinarians of Europe conference in Brussels said that fish welfare is a very wide term that has implications in other areas of aquaculture management.
And he warned that all too often disease management is seen as the means of managing fish health and is viewed separately from fish welfare. The whole picture of production measures together with disease treatment has to be taken into consideration to ensure full health and welfare.
Dr Kadri said that fish health management has come a long way over the decades and has been greatly improved by preventative measures, which are often used as a standard approach – such as the use of probiotics and vaccines.
However, he added that these measures are not without their problems and should not be used for an excuse for complacency among fish health managers.
He said that preventative measures such as vaccination can have problems with side effects and other issues come into play for maintaining health other than curing and preventing disease.
Many of the measures being used by fish health professionals are just fire fighting and the losses through disease can be severe and have not changed much over 20 years
"Vets react well with diagnostic tools, but it is fire fighting. We need a new paradigm," he said.
He said that the veterinary community in general needs to become more aware of what actually takes place in the aquaculture environment to ensure the total health and welfare of the fish.
The veterinarians need to work with the people on the farms so that they can learn and the farmers can learn, he said.
"Health is a state of complete physical well-being and not merely the absence of disease – it is not about fish coping but performing too," he said.
Dr Kadri said the most important aspect of fish health and welfare is water quality, including monitoring the quantities of carbon dioxide and heavy metals as well as the supply of water and the renewal rates.
Welfare considerations also have to take into account the water support systems such as the oxygen supply, boreholes and reservoirs.
Further welfare issues that impact on fish health are the stresses that the fish are placed under in loading on and off the farm and the stresses in transport and the need to mitigate potential mortality rates, which have an economic effect on the business.
"Effects of stress upon fish health are real and demonstrable," he said.
Other issues of husbandry such as nutritional requirements, the type of feed, nutritional profile, pellet size and feed management also have to be taken into consideration.
He said that common pathogens often have subclinical effects and these need to be managed not only through veterinary intervention but also through husbandry practices.
"Veterinary diagnostic approach often involves 'experts', who have little or no connection with production," he said.
Dr Kadri added that the industry needs to reduce losses to grow sustainably and this requires a paradigm shift in veterinary/health care.
He said there needs to be a move towards greater involvement with production and allowing preventative health/welfare management.

Heshan District of Yiyang City, Hunan dumb river river float number of dead fish
June 14, 2013 China Aquaculture Network Source: Yiyang TV News Network Views: 2530 times I want to comment

In recent days, Heshan Town, Lanxi River dumb a lot of dead fish floating on the river, involving seven or eight miles long river, causing the river fisheries dumb villagers suffered heavy losses.

Just come to the town of one thousand reporters Lanxi River Island embankment dumb, to smell the stench, I saw the river of dead fish floating in the large and small, attracted a lot of flies. Originally crystal clear waters, and now very muddy, exudes an unpleasant taste.

Long Pine reflected since June 2 began, dumb river appeared dead, ten days, the fish are dead after another, their home lost nearly 2.4 million fry, there are 11 contracted dumb river fishing villagers also lose everything.

   Long Pine said that in 2001 he began to fish in the river dumb, like dead fish situation is first encountered.

   Afterward, the reporter came to the pine and the dragon Heshan District Fisheries fishery station, webmaster Wang Furong dead fish in the river listening to dumb situation, put forward their own views.

Dead fish incident, June 5, Heshan District Environmental Protection Bureau and the Municipal Environmental Protection Bureau goes to the river looked dumb, and to do testing water samples were extracted, but the specific test results have not come out, we will continue to focus on .

"We know very little at this point, we have the D.E.P coming out to conduct some follow-up tests. We've already done some initial testing of the water, no obvious contaminants have been found in the water," said Borough Manager Dawn Human.
Residents are being asked not to fish or go into the lake until authorities finish testing the water.
Human says it's possible the dead fish may have washed up in this week's storms.