Fishing News
A specter of disease is haunting rockfish
By Heather Dewar
Threat: Some scientists feel that many Chesapeake Bay striped bass are infected with the slowly progressing and potentially deadly mycobacteriosis.
OFF HOWELL POINT - The big striped bass caught in the scientist's net is so strong that even a pair of veterans, a waterman and a biologist, struggle to hold it.
Nearly 3 1/2 feet long, at least 10 years old and bulging with eggs, this oceangoing female has come to the upper Chesapeake Bay to spawn. Thwarted, the fish fights back, casting off a glistening arc of water as its body flexes powerfully and its yellow-and-black eyes roll.
After measuring and tagging the giant rockfish for a scientific survey, state fisheries biologist Lisa Warner tosses it overboard, where it vanishes. "Go, baby, go!" says an admiring Warner.
Is this fish, its future offspring and its kin in trouble, threatened by a widespread and potentially deadly disease?
Some respected scientists suspect so, pointing to signs that many, if not most of Chesapeake Bay's striped bass are infected with a disease called mycobacteriosis that is almost always lethal in fish farms.
Click Here for Full Story
|
