U.S. bans 37 live fish species from Ontario, Quebec

Last Updated: Wednesday, October 25, 2006 | 5:48 PM ET

CBC News

The U.S. has banned the import of 37 live fish species — including rainbow trout and chinook and coho salmon — from Ontario and Quebec, fearing a disease could decimate stocks in the Great Lakes.

The United States Department of Agriculture (USDA), which issued the emergency order on Tuesday, also banned the movement of the fish between eight states that border the Great Lakes because of outbreaks of viral hemorrhagic septicemia.

The department said the disease does not affect humans but is fatal to many popular species of sports fish, including ones that weren't previously thought to be susceptible.

Among the long list of banned live fish are:

• Trout (brown and rainbow, which is the species most commonly farmed for human consumption in Ontario).
• Cod (Atlantic and Pacific).
• Salmon (chinook, coho, chum and pink).
• Bass (largemouth, rock, smallmouth and white).
• Perch (white and yellow).

Dr. Jim Rogers of the USDA's inspection service said even species that aren't native to Ontario and Quebec, like the Pacific salmon, are covered by the ban.

"It [the disease] affects not only fish that we traditionally believe it affects, but a lot more based on new research," Rogers said.

When it infects fish, it can cause fatal anemia and hemorrhaging in the gills and eyes, according to the World Organization for Animal Health.

Affects Canada's $3M baitfish industry

Several species of small fish that are exported from Canada for use as bait in the United States are also banned.

Dr. Archie Stewart of the Canadian Food Inspection Agency said he is trying to assess the cost of the ban to the baitfish farming industry in Ontario and Quebec.

"Because a lot of these [fish species] have not been regulated in the past," he said, "we don't have a good handle on it but at this time, a very modest estimate of it is $3,000,000."

Some experts have blamed viral hemorrhagic septicemia for the deaths of thousands of fish that washed up on the shores of Lake Ontario in the summer.

The virus was first detected in the northeastern United States in 2005 and in dead fish from the Bay of Quinte in Lake Ontario in spring of 2006.

It has spread to several other of the Great Lakes and smaller bodies of water in New York state.