Fishing for Answers

By Ray Grass Deseret Morning News

LOGAN — It looks like a rainbow trout — red streak along the side, gray-blue body, patterned with black dots. It even fights like a rainbow, very showy, and bites like a rainbow, which is typically much more often than other fish.

When it comes to whirling disease, however, the “Ho-Ha,” for lack of a better name right now, is the super fish.

It is, said Chris Wilson, director of the Fisheries Experiment Station in Logan, “10 times more resistant to whirling disease than our local rainbow.”

Which may mean the Ho-Ha is an answer, albeit not a solution, to Utah’s whirling disease problem. Early tests are promising. More tests are necessary.

Work with the Ho-Ha is but one of the ongoing programs at the Logan facility run by the Utah Division of Wildlife Resources.

Other responsibilities range from the survival of endangered fish to monitoring Utah’s state hatchery system and waters to finding ways to keep healthy fish healthier.

It is a part of the wildlife division that works more in modest anonymity than boastful notoriety.

Most fishermen know little if anything about the Logan station. What they do take for granted is the tug on the other end of the line is a healthy, edible fish.

The center started out as a chicken farm on the outskirts of Logan back in the 1920s. The DWR purchased the land and buildings and constructed raceways for fish.

In the 1960s, Ron Goede, now retired overseer of the station, took charge and expanded responsibilities to deal with new concepts and new problems within the Utah fishing system.

During his career, Goede would become recognized as one of the leading experts in the area of fish health, and the center would be called in an independent study one of the finest in the country.

When Goede took over, dead fish were being taken from state hatcheries in wheelbarrows because of diseases and, it would later be discovered, poor nutrition.

Over the years, new methods of disease control have been introduced, new fish have been raised as well as improvements in fish nutrition, all because of work at the station.

For example, explained Eric Wagner, director of research, “Nutrition is no longer a problem.” There are now foods on the market that supply growing fish with all their daily nutritional requirements.

And, as Wilson pointed out, some of the diseases have been contained, “but those that remain can be a huge problem (for Utah) … and we’re working on those.”

Whirling disease is at the top of the list.

Responsibility for monitoring state hatcheries and state waters for whirling disease fall under the responsibilities of Wade Cavender, fish health specialist. This involves duties such as the constant testing and surveying of critical tributaries feeding infected waters and recording any of the infected waters to show where parasites are and allow regional managers to manage accordingly.

Knowing where the disease is found is very important in trying to stop further spreading.

Duties also involve the constant testing of brood stock and eggs to make sure there are no signs of disease agents.

There are, at present, six main pathogens Cavender looks for — three are viruses, two are parasites and one is a bacteria.

As in the case of WD, if found in a hatchery, it may be costly, but it can be contained. If found in the wild, about the only thing that can be done is to try to stop it from spreading to disease- free waters. The cleanup and prevention measures afterward to protect contaminated hatcheries have cost Utah sportsmen millions of dollars.

Cavender is also working on vaccines to combat bacterial pathogens, such as those that cause cold water disease, which is found in Utah and is fatal to fish.

“We take a lot of things for granted because we don’t have a lot of the diseases we had 50 years ago. But there are diseases out there that can wipe out a sports fishery, and we need to constantly do inspections to make sure they don’t become a more serious problem,” said Wilson.

Finding fish that are more compatible to Utah waters is another area of work being done the Logan center.

One such fish is the splake, a cross between a lake and brook trout. It is better able to fight off diseases, but its range is limited. It cannot, for example, be planted in some mid- and low- elevation waters.

The tiger trout, a mix between a brown and brook trout, is not as impervious to whirling disease but is more adaptable and possibly more popular.

While both fish are aggressive and tasty, it is the tiger that got the looks. The tiger is a strikingly beautiful fish. It features a maze of dark stripes, thus the name tiger, which are stenciled over a body of pale green and gold. Its lower fins are a yellowish orange.

One fish that failed to make it into the Utah system was the brownbow, a cross between a rainbow and brown trout. The fish was slow growing and costly to raise.

“With so many of the hybrids, they sound good on paper, but in reality the percentage of survival in a hatchery is very low, and they are just not practical to raise,” said Wagner.

“One big advantage to raising hybrids is they are sterile. In some waters we get more reproduction than we want. With sterile fish we can better control the population.”

The Ho-Ha is a true rainbow and can reproduce, and because it is Utah’s most popular game fish and is more resistant to WD, it is an ideal introduction.

The Ho-Ha is a cross between a rainbow from Harrison Lake, Mont., which has proved to be more resistant to the whirling disease parasite, and a rainbow trout from Germany from the Hofer strain, which has proved to be even more resistant.

The center has also become a main source of fish in the recovery program of the June sucker and is working on the survival of the endangered leatherback chub.

The Logan center is, in fact, important to the overall Utah fishing program.

E-mail: grass@desnews.com

(c) 2007 Deseret News (Salt Lake City). Provided by ProQuest Information and Learning. All rights Reserved.