Recalled Fish Food - FWS photo

Recalled Brood Stock Fish Food - FWS photo

Just about everyone has heard about the melamine contamination in pet food.  By adding melamine to animal feeds it gives an appearance of increased protein content.  Melamine has also been purposely added as a binder to fish and cattle feed.  Suffice it to say, melamine is an industrial chemical and should not be used in food/feed products.

The effect so far to the Pendills Creek/Sullivan Creek NFH Complex has been one of disruption, alarm and increased work load dealing with these recalls of fish food.  Fortunately, to date the only melamine contaminated feed fed has been melamine added as a binder to brood stock diet.  Used in this way, the level of melamine is significantly lower than when used in wheat gluten.  The potential effects on long lived lake trout aren't known at this time.  The hatchery complex has processed two feed recalls including replacement of those contaminated feeds with new clean fish food.  Until now, fish food issues have involved some type of quality factor such as too many fine particles or some other nutritional specification of the diet not being met.  These contaminated fish food recalls bring a whole new issue to the forefront, since we are involved with a captive brood stock and restoration program, contamination of any kind could potentially impact our program for years to come.  It is this type of non quantifiable impact that will not be known for sometime.