LaCrosse FRO Biologist Louise Mauldin attended an Introduction to Fish Health course, Feb 12-16. 

This introductory course was instructed by the US Fish and Wildlife Service Fish Health Center located in LaCrosse, WI.  This week long course covered several topics, including fish disease caused by bacteria, parasites, and viruses. 

Among the most interesting topics was VHS or Viral Hemoragic Sesticemia, a virus that gained much publicity in 2006. The virus struck in the Great Lakes and resulted in a federal order by APHIS, forbidding the transport of fish outside the Great Lakes and Mississippi River basins. 

The order has since been revised.  Lab work accompanied lectures, allowing participants to learn basic procedures to obtain and handle blood, liver, kidney and spleen samples to observe certain bacteria and parasites.

Such training will allow for potential detection of fish disease by abnormal behavior and obvious physical appearance when in the field sampling fish populations.