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<p class=MsoNormal><font size=2 color=navy face=Arial><span style='font-size:
10.0pt;font-family:Arial;color:navy'>Please be aware, that this is a different
kind of “ich” than what caused the fish kill in the lower Klamath
in 2002. The article is incorrect in calling it whitespot or “ich”.
<o:p></o:p></span></font></p>
<p class=MsoNormal><font size=2 color=navy face=Arial><span style='font-size:
10.0pt;font-family:Arial;color:navy'><o:p> </o:p></span></font></p>
<p class=MsoNormal><font size=2 color=navy face=Arial><span style='font-size:
10.0pt;font-family:Arial;color:navy'>The disease that these Alaskan fish have (Ichthyophonus
hoferi) is a marine fungal disease that causes the fish to become inedible.
It is incorrect to call it whitespot disease or “ich”. Please
see the following link: <a
href="http://www.aquaworldnet.com/awmag/diseases.htm">http://www.aquaworldnet.com/awmag/diseases.htm</a>
. It often infects herring in marine waters. <o:p></o:p></span></font></p>
<p class=MsoNormal><font size=2 color=navy face=Arial><span style='font-size:
10.0pt;font-family:Arial;color:navy'><o:p> </o:p></span></font></p>
<p class=MsoNormal><font size=2 color=navy face=Arial><span style='font-size:
10.0pt;font-family:Arial;color:navy'>The disease that the Klamath fish had was Ichthyopthirius
multifiliis, which is a protozoan parasite. <a
href="http://edis.ifas.ufl.edu/FA006">http://edis.ifas.ufl.edu/FA006</a> These
two diseases are not closely related. <o:p></o:p></span></font></p>
<p class=MsoNormal><font size=2 color=navy face=Arial><span style='font-size:
10.0pt;font-family:Arial;color:navy'><o:p> </o:p></span></font></p>
<p class=MsoNormal><font size=2 color=navy face=Arial><span style='font-size:
10.0pt;font-family:Arial;color:navy'>This is important because the “true”
ich that we had on the Klamath did not result in noticeable degradation of the
quality of the fish, while the fungal disease in the <st1:place w:st="on"><st1:State
w:st="on">Yukon</st1:State></st1:place> did. <o:p></o:p></span></font></p>
<p class=MsoNormal><font size=2 color=navy face=Arial><span style='font-size:
10.0pt;font-family:Arial;color:navy'><o:p> </o:p></span></font></p>
<p class=MsoNormal><font size=2 color=navy face=Arial><span style='font-size:
10.0pt;font-family:Arial;color:navy'>Mike Belchik<o:p></o:p></span></font></p>
<p class=MsoNormal><font size=2 color=navy face=Arial><span style='font-size:
10.0pt;font-family:Arial;color:navy'>Senior Fisheries Biologist<o:p></o:p></span></font></p>
<p class=MsoNormal><font size=2 color=navy face=Arial><span style='font-size:
10.0pt;font-family:Arial;color:navy'>Yurok Tribe<o:p></o:p></span></font></p>
<p class=MsoNormal><font size=2 color=navy face=Arial><span style='font-size:
10.0pt;font-family:Arial;color:navy'><o:p> </o:p></span></font></p>
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face="Times New Roman"><span style='font-size:12.0pt'>
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<p class=MsoNormal><b><font size=2 face=Tahoma><span style='font-size:10.0pt;
font-family:Tahoma;font-weight:bold'>From:</span></font></b><font size=2
face=Tahoma><span style='font-size:10.0pt;font-family:Tahoma'> env-trinity-bounces@velocipede.dcn.davis.ca.us
[mailto:env-trinity-bounces@velocipede.dcn.davis.ca.us] <b><span
style='font-weight:bold'>On Behalf Of </span></b>Tom Stokely<br>
<b><span style='font-weight:bold'>Sent:</span></b> Wednesday, June 18, 2008
1:28 PM<br>
<b><span style='font-weight:bold'>To:</span></b> Trinity List<br>
<b><span style='font-weight:bold'>Subject:</span></b> [env-trinity] <st1:State
w:st="on"><st1:place w:st="on">Alaska</st1:place></st1:State> salmon may bear
scars of global warming<br>
<b><span style='font-weight:bold'>Importance:</span></b> High</span></font><o:p></o:p></p>
</div>
<p class=MsoNormal><font size=3 face="Times New Roman"><span style='font-size:
12.0pt'><o:p> </o:p></span></font></p>
<p class=MsoNormal><font size=3 face="Times New Roman"><span style='font-size:
12.0pt'><br>
<br>
<o:p></o:p></span></font></p>
<p class=MsoNormal style='margin-bottom:12.0pt'><st1:State w:st="on"><st1:place
w:st="on"><b><font size=4 face="Times New Roman"><span style='font-size:13.5pt;
font-weight:bold'>Alaska</span></font></b></st1:place></st1:State><b><font
size=4><span style='font-size:13.5pt;font-weight:bold'> salmon may bear scars
of global warming</span></font></b><br>
<br>
The <st1:City w:st="on"><st1:place w:st="on">Los Angeles</st1:place></st1:City>
Times- 6/15/08<br>
<br>
By Kenneth R. Weiss, Staff Writer<br>
<br>
<br>
<br>
<st1:place w:st="on"><st1:City w:st="on">TANANA</st1:City>, <st1:State w:st="on">ALASKA</st1:State></st1:place>
-- With a sickening thud, another hefty and handsome<br>
salmon lands in the waste barrel, headed for the dogs.<br>
<br>
"See, it's all of the biggest, best-looking fish," said Pat Moore,<br>
waving a stogie at the pile of discards. "It breaks my heart. My dogs<br>
cannot eat all that. The maggots will get them first."<br>
<br>
<br>
<br>
More Alaskan salmon caught here end up in the dog pot these days, <br>
their<br>
orange-pink flesh fouled by disease that scientists have correlated with<br>
warmer water in the <st1:place w:st="on">Yukon River</st1:place>.<br>
<br>
The sorting of winners and losers at <st1:City w:st="on"><st1:place w:st="on">Moore</st1:place></st1:City>'s
riverbank fish camp<br>
illustrates what scientists have been predicting will accompany global<br>
warming: Cold-temperature barriers are giving way, allowing parasites,<br>
bacteria and other disease-spreading organisms to move toward higher<br>
latitudes.<br>
<br>
"Climate change isn't going to increase infectious diseases but change<br>
the disease landscape," said marine ecologist Kevin D. Lafferty, who<br>
studies parasites for the U.S. Geological Survey. "And some of these<br>
surprises are not going to be pretty."<br>
<br>
The emergence of disease in <st1:State w:st="on"><st1:place w:st="on">Alaska</st1:place></st1:State>'s
most prized salmon has come as a<br>
shock to fishermen and fisheries managers. Alaskan wild salmon has been<br>
an uncommon success story among over-exploited fisheries, with healthy<br>
runs and robust catches that fetch ever higher prices at fish markets<br>
and high-end restaurants in <st1:City w:st="on">Los Angeles</st1:City>, <st1:State
w:st="on">New York</st1:State>, <st1:City w:st="on">Tokyo</st1:City> and <st1:City
w:st="on"><st1:place w:st="on">London</st1:place></st1:City>.<br>
<br>
Fishermen and regulators who have cooperated to save species from<br>
overfishing and local environmental hazards have been caught unprepared<br>
to deal with forces beyond their control: how to manage a fishery for<br>
climate change.<br>
<br>
The return of the king -- or chinook -- salmon is eagerly anticipated<br>
along the <st1:State w:st="on"><st1:place w:st="on">Yukon</st1:place></st1:State>.
The biggest of the salmon species, these kings arrive<br>
with a muscular flash of the tail, sun glinting off a speckled palette<br>
of blues and greens fading to silver and red.<br>
<br>
Savvy buyers from <st1:country-region w:st="on"><st1:place w:st="on">Japan</st1:place></st1:country-region>
converge on the docks near the river's mouth to<br>
purchase these fish that have bulked up with extra fat to swim more than<br>
2,000 miles, across <st1:State w:st="on"><st1:place w:st="on">Alaska</st1:place></st1:State>,
to spawn in the stream of their birth.<br>
<br>
As a fierce defender of the fish's reputation, Gene Sandone, a regional<br>
supervisor for <st1:State w:st="on"><st1:place w:st="on">Alaska</st1:place></st1:State>'s
Fish and Game Department, was less than<br>
receptive to complaints from Tanana fishermen such as <st1:City w:st="on"><st1:place
w:st="on">Moore</st1:place></st1:City> that<br>
something was wrong.<br>
<br>
The chinook salmon they pulled from the <st1:place w:st="on">Yukon River</st1:place>
about 700 miles<br>
inland didn't smell right. It wasn't an instant, gag-inducing stench. It<br>
was more subtle but grew into an unpleasant odor of fruit rotting in the<br>
hot sun.<br>
<br>
More important, the flesh turned mealy. The salmon didn't dry right in<br>
smokehouses either. Instead of turning into rich red strips of salmon<br>
jerky, they turned black and oily like strips of greasy rotten mango.<br>
<br>
"If you don't weed out the bad ones, it'll stink up the whole<br>
smokehouse," <st1:City w:st="on"><st1:place w:st="on">Moore</st1:place></st1:City>
said, wielding a knife on his cutting table. "I only<br>
want the good stuff. I don't want second-rate fish."<br>
<br>
Salmon jerky strips are a staple among the Native Americans and<br>
subsistence fishermen in rural outposts such as <st1:place w:st="on">Tanana</st1:place>,
a village of 270<br>
people. "It'll keep you warm in the winter," said Lorene Moore, Pat's<br>
wife and a native of the village. In <st1:State w:st="on"><st1:place w:st="on">Alaska</st1:place></st1:State>'s
bigger cities, these<br>
strips are a prized delicacy, fetching $20 or more a pound.<br>
<br>
When Bill Fliris, another <st1:place w:st="on">Tanana</st1:place> fisherman,
first noticed the problem in<br>
the late 1980s, he bundled up some salmon jerky strips and shipped them<br>
to a state Fish and Game biologist. A few weeks later, the biologist<br>
said it was "the damnedest thing -- they disappeared out of the freezer.<br>
You know: free strips."<br>
<br>
The next year, Fliris shipped more samples, and this time they were<br>
tested. But the state Fish and Game lab found nothing amiss.<br>
<br>
A friendly federal biologist advised the local fishermen to send<br>
samples, including hearts and organs that were covered with tiny<br>
pimples, to the Center for Fish Disease Research at <st1:place w:st="on"><st1:PlaceName
w:st="on">Oregon</st1:PlaceName> <st1:PlaceType w:st="on">State</st1:PlaceType></st1:place><br>
University.<br>
<br>
The <st1:State w:st="on"><st1:place w:st="on">Oregon</st1:place></st1:State>
lab quickly identified it as "white spot disease," caused by<br>
a microscopic parasite called Ichthyophonus hoferi. Ich (pronounced<br>
"ick") is a well-known disease, harmless to humans, that was blamed
for<br>
devastating losses in the herring fishery in <st1:place w:st="on">Scandinavia</st1:place>.
A similar<br>
parasite can infect aquarium fish.<br>
<br>
The portion of <st1:State w:st="on"><st1:place w:st="on">Yukon</st1:place></st1:State>
salmon with Ich grew each year. Fishermen were<br>
throwing away as much as 30% of their catch, forcing them to catch more<br>
fish to fill their cache for the winter.<br>
<br>
"The Alaskan Department of Fish and Game wasn't interested," Fliris<br>
said. "They said, 'There's no money to study this. It's a natural<br>
disease. There's nothing we can do about it.' "<br>
<br>
<br>
<br>
So Fliris contacted an outsider: Richard M. Kocan, a fish disease expert<br>
at the <st1:place w:st="on"><st1:PlaceType w:st="on">University</st1:PlaceType>
of <st1:PlaceName w:st="on">Washington</st1:PlaceName></st1:place>. Lining up
a federal grant, Kocan began<br>
to test the fish in 2000, the same year the king salmon run suffered an<br>
unexpected temporary collapse that forced the closure of the river's<br>
commercial fishery.<br>
<br>
At the mouth of the <st1:State w:st="on"><st1:place w:st="on">Yukon</st1:place></st1:State>,
where the commercial gill netters operate,<br>
25% to 30% of the chinook salmon were infected, Kocan found. But the<br>
fish usually did not show signs of the disease.<br>
<br>
The same proportion were infected at midriver near <st1:place w:st="on">Tanana</st1:place>,
about<br>
halfway to the Canadian border. But here, nearly a third of the fish<br>
showed the salt-like flecks on their hearts and other organs, and their<br>
mealy flesh released the telltale smell of putrid fruit.<br>
<br>
Kocan went upstream to the spawning grounds near <st1:place w:st="on"><st1:City
w:st="on">Whitehorse</st1:City>, <st1:country-region w:st="on">Canada</st1:country-region></st1:place>,
and<br>
found that the proportion of infected fish dropped dramatically. But<br>
why? It didn't seem logical that the fish were recovering during the<br>
last part of their stressful 2,200-mile swim, accomplished over many<br>
weeks without eating.<br>
<br>
"The working hypothesis," Kocan said, "is that they died before
they<br>
made it to the spawning grounds."<br>
<br>
Tracking what happens to these fish is difficult. The <st1:State w:st="on"><st1:place
w:st="on">Yukon</st1:place></st1:State> turns<br>
mocha-brown in the summer, when its swift waters carry a load of rock<br>
flour released by rock-pulverizing glaciers and other sediment. Salmon<br>
that perish sink out of sight.<br>
<br>
To test his theory, Kocan set up a laboratory experiment that compared<br>
the swimming stamina of infected rainbow trout with that of healthy<br>
trout. He used a chamber with water swift enough to exhaust a healthy<br>
fish in about 10 minutes. The infected fish lasted about two minutes.<br>
"It's like asking someone with heart disease to run a 10K race,"
Kocan<br>
said. "He's not going to do very well."<br>
<br>
That left a question: Why did the previously undetected disease show up<br>
in the late 1980s and resurface every year since?<br>
<br>
Kocan and his students scrutinized all the potential variables and found<br>
only one significant change: Average river water temperatures had been<br>
rising over the last three decades. The warming began earlier each<br>
spring, following an earlier breakup of the river's ice. The June<br>
temperatures showed the greatest increase, about 6 to 8 degrees warmer,<br>
and June is when king salmon return from the ocean and begin their long<br>
upriver migration to spawn.<br>
<br>
Unlike warm-blooded animals, the body temperature of salmon fluctuates<br>
with the temperature of surrounding waters. Laboratory studies of Ich<br>
infections in trout, a close cousin, have revealed that the incidence of<br>
disease and death rises as water warms, especially above 59 degrees.<br>
<br>
Kocan spent five summers on the <st1:place w:st="on">Yukon River</st1:place>
studying the parasite,<br>
creating an uproar among fishermen by sharing his findings directly with<br>
them, rather than allowing state Fish and Game officials to review the<br>
data first.<br>
<br>
He suddenly found his funding drying up after objections from Alaskan<br>
representatives on the committee that doles out research dollars.<br>
<br>
"I've essentially been blackballed from working on the <st1:State w:st="on"><st1:place
w:st="on">Yukon</st1:place></st1:State>," said<br>
Kocan, whose work has since been accepted and published in peer-reviewed<br>
journals. "There's one fellow specifically who does not like our<br>
results: Gene Sandone. He doesn't want to hear the story and change his<br>
management practices."<br>
<br>
Sandone denied playing any part in this: "I didn't blackball Richard<br>
Kocan. Dr. Kocan is free to put in a proposal and argue his point. He<br>
just has to get it through the technical committee."<br>
<br>
The clash comes over the implications of Kocan's thesis. He believes<br>
that as much as 20% of king salmon are dying en route to the spawning<br>
grounds. If so, fisheries managers would have to cut back the commercial<br>
catch by at least that amount to keep the run healthy.<br>
<br>
Sandone has an alternative theory, which has not been tested. He<br>
believes that the sick fish, weakened by the parasite, swim along the<br>
slower-moving edge of the river, where a disproportionate number get<br>
caught by fishing nets and fish wheels that line the banks.<br>
<br>
In other words, subsistence fishermen like Pat Moore are simply catching<br>
most of the sick fish. The healthy ones swim just out of reach, deeper<br>
in the river, headed straight for <st1:country-region w:st="on"><st1:place
w:st="on">Canada</st1:place></st1:country-region>.<br>
<br>
"That's my theory -- that they are not dying on the way," Sandone
said.<br>
"Even if they are dying on the way, so what?" His department limits
the<br>
catch based on how many fish escape all the nets and make it to the<br>
spawning grounds to reproduce.<br>
<br>
That's been going well, he said, except for last year, when the number<br>
of fish that made it to <st1:country-region w:st="on"><st1:place w:st="on">Canada</st1:place></st1:country-region>
fell 50% below the minimum spelled out in<br>
a U.S.-Canadian agreement.<br>
<br>
Sandone is retiring later this year, after 26 years as a state official.<br>
The fishermen in <st1:place w:st="on">Tanana</st1:place>, who scoff at his
theory, say they are delighted<br>
to see him go. They hope the state will be less hostile to studying the<br>
disease and trying to figure out what to do about it.<br>
<br>
Besides supporting fishermen, salmon are a keystone species in <st1:State
w:st="on"><st1:place w:st="on">Alaska</st1:place></st1:State><br>
and the <st1:place w:st="on">Pacific Northwest</st1:place>, supporting wildlife
from birds to bears and<br>
orcas.<br>
<br>
A crash could cripple dependent creatures.<br>
<br>
Mary Ruckelshaus, a federal biologist with the Northwest Fisheries<br>
<st1:PlaceName w:st="on">Science</st1:PlaceName> <st1:PlaceType w:st="on">Center</st1:PlaceType>
in <st1:City w:st="on"><st1:place w:st="on">Seattle</st1:place></st1:City>, has
been running climate models to peer into<br>
the future for <st1:place w:st="on">Pacific Northwest</st1:place> salmon. Those
models predict that<br>
salmon will become extinct without aggressive efforts to preserve the<br>
clear, cool streams needed for spawning, such as planting trees to shade<br>
streams and curtailing the amount of water siphoned off by farmers.<br>
<br>
"It's sort of a time bomb," Ruckelshaus said.<br>
<br>
"If people don't have a plan for it, it can be disastrous when it hits."<br>
<br>
Her models didn't factor in the potential for emerging diseases, such as<br>
the one that Kocan, her former professor, has been studying.<br>
<br>
Kocan views Ichthyophonus as a classic emerging disease. He pointed out<br>
that salmon, a lucrative catch, had been scrutinized by scientists and<br>
fishermen for decades, and the disease had never before been reported.<br>
In the last decade, it has shown up in salmon on the <st1:State w:st="on">Yukon</st1:State>,
<st1:place w:st="on">Kuskokwim</st1:place><br>
and Taku rivers in <st1:State w:st="on">Alaska</st1:State> and on various
rivers in <st1:State w:st="on"><st1:place w:st="on">British Columbia</st1:place></st1:State>
and<br>
<st1:country-region w:st="on"><st1:place w:st="on">Russia</st1:place></st1:country-region>.<br>
<br>
It has also been detected in recent years in rockfish and smaller<br>
noncommercial fish in Puget Sound and elsewhere off the coasts of <st1:State
w:st="on"><st1:place w:st="on">Oregon</st1:place></st1:State><br>
and <st1:State w:st="on">Washington</st1:State>, and in freshwater trout on <st1:State
w:st="on"><st1:place w:st="on">Idaho</st1:place></st1:State> farms.<br>
<br>
It's the kind of redistribution of disease that can be expected with<br>
climate change, Kocan said: "Everything is getting warmer, and that's<br>
how climate change is going to redistribute all kinds of disease.<br>
Parasites have their optimum conditions -- upper and lower limits. We'll<br>
notice where they show up but not necessarily where they disappear."<br>
<br>
Ichthyophonus is among a class of ancient parasitic microbes that can<br>
move fast, taking advantage of new niches using age-old tricks that have<br>
kept them around for billions of years.<br>
<br>
None of this comforts Pat Moore, a musher with dozens of dogs, and<br>
others who rely on the bounty of the <st1:place w:st="on">Yukon River</st1:place>
to make their living.<br>
It's a culture that lives on the edge and cannot stomach waste.<br>
<br>
"I don't want to kill fish for the sake of killing them," said <st1:City
w:st="on"><st1:place w:st="on">Moore</st1:place></st1:City>, as<br>
he expertly sliced a king into narrow strips.<br>
<br>
"I want to use the damned things."#<br>
<br>
<a
href="http://www.latimes.com/news/printedition/front/la-na-ichfish15-2008jun15"
eudora=autourl>http://www.latimes.com/news/printedition/front/la-na-ichfish15-2008jun15</a><br>
,0,2020280.story?page=1<o:p></o:p></p>
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