05-11-2005, 04:08 PM
SPRINGVILLE , UT- Approximately 900,000 fish at Utah’s Springville hatchery will be killed after an outbreak of whirling disease was recently discovered there. Most of the fish are rainbow trout slated to be stocked in lakes across the state.
The Springville Hatchery is the third in Utah to experience an outbreak of the disease, and a fourth hatchery is currently being rebuilt, leaving only six of the state’s 10 hatcheries actively producing stock fish.
Officials say they will build a water-treatment system sensitive enough to remove all whirling disease spores from the Springville facility, and all raceways where the fish live will be sterilized after the fish are killed.
In related news, a seven-hour power outage at a federal fish hatchery in Warren, Pennsylvania, killed 300,000 lake trout that were ready to be stocked in lakes Erie and Ontario this year.
According to the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, a scheduled power outage for line repair at the hatchery was followed by an unexpected surge that cut power to the hatchery’s backup generator. Officials say stress from the outage could lead to even more deaths in surviving fish during the coming days.
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The Springville Hatchery is the third in Utah to experience an outbreak of the disease, and a fourth hatchery is currently being rebuilt, leaving only six of the state’s 10 hatcheries actively producing stock fish.
Officials say they will build a water-treatment system sensitive enough to remove all whirling disease spores from the Springville facility, and all raceways where the fish live will be sterilized after the fish are killed.
In related news, a seven-hour power outage at a federal fish hatchery in Warren, Pennsylvania, killed 300,000 lake trout that were ready to be stocked in lakes Erie and Ontario this year.
According to the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, a scheduled power outage for line repair at the hatchery was followed by an unexpected surge that cut power to the hatchery’s backup generator. Officials say stress from the outage could lead to even more deaths in surviving fish during the coming days.
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