Thread: Dauphin Island fish show up with lesions...

http://blog.al.com/live/2012/01/daup...how_up_wi.html

al.com
[size=14pt]Dauphin Island fish show up with lesions, BP spill link questioned[/size]
Published: Wednesday, January 11, 2012, 6:04 AM Updated: Wednesday, January 11, 2012, 7:37 AM
By Ben Raines, Press-Register

Two thirds of the whiting caught by the Press-Register on Dauphin Island Monday had lesions on their bodies. The fish live in the turbulent surf zone, where much of BP's oil ended up. Scientists said there might be a connection between the spill and the appearance of the lesions, but cautioned that other factors may be at play. The large fish in the background weighed 12 pounds. The smaller fish in the foreground were about 12 inches long. (Ben Raines/Press-Register)

DAUPHIN ISLAND, Alabama -- More than half the fish caught Monday by Press-Register reporters in the surf off Dauphin Island had bloody red lesions on their bodies.

Fishing along an uninhabited portion of the barrier island during a trip to survey beaches for tarballs, the newspaper caught 21 fish, 14 of them with lesions. Of those fish, eight had lesions a quarter of an inch across or smaller, while 6 had much larger blemishes.

Most of the fish were whiting, a small species common to the surf zone throughout the Gulf of Mexico. Whiting grow to about 2 pounds and are ubiquitous in the surf year round, commonly found inside the first sand bar near breaking waves.

A 12-pound black drum also exhibited lesions.

Scientists contacted by the newspaper noted that whiting spend their lives close to shore in the area most affected by the Gulf oil spill. Buried mats of oil persist in the surf zone along the Mississippi and Alabama coasts and tarballs remain common on the beach.

BP crews working at the water’s edge on Mississippi’s Petit Bois Island — adjacent to Dauphin Island — collect about 250 pounds of tarballs per day, company officials said Tuesday.

But, the scientists cautioned, many factors could be to blame, and disease has always been a part of the Gulf ecosystem.

“Certainly there is reason to be concerned about these kind of results. Understanding what it means will require a more carefully designed scientific investigation,” said John Valentine, head of the Dauphin Island Sea Lab, after examining photographs of the newspaper’s catch.

“You’d want to know how widespread this is. There’s plenty of reason to be concerned if it turns out to be a widespread phenomenon, and if it spreads across multiple species.”

Both the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration and the National Marine Fisheries Service have been researching possible connections between disease seen in offshore species and the Gulf oil spill. In response to questions, the agencies referred the newspaper to Steve Murawski, a University of South Florida researcher.

Murawski found that about 3 percent of Gulf fish were afflicted with some type of lesion during sampling conducted for the government after the spill. He said the lesions seen on the whiting “don’t look like the standard skin ulcers we’ve seen associated with the Deepwater Horizon.”

“When you get high frequency of fish disease in a location, sure it’s a cause for concern. But without any chemistry we can’t connect it to Deepwater Horizon,” Murawski said. “It looks like there is some kind of pathogen, a bacteria or parasite.”

He asked the newspaper for samples of affected fish, as did Will Patterson with the Dauphin Island Sea Lab.

The livers and bile of the fish will be analyzed for the presence of oil-related compounds, both said.

Jim Cowan — a Louisiana State University scientist also investigating the presence of disease in the red snapper population since the spill — said his work suggests sick fish are more common in locations that received oil during the spill.

Tarballs were visible in the surf in the area where the Press-Register caught the diseased whiting.

“Whiting are in the drum family. They only live about two or three years. They spawn offshore, but the juveniles come in and live in the high-energy surf zone. They are unique among the drum in that they are really restricted to those high-energy, high-salinity areas,” said Bob Shipp, head of marine sciences at the University of South Alabama.

The lesions are similar in appearance to wounds seen on fish in Mobile Bay four years ago during a widespread disease outbreak. In that case, scientists blamed a bacteria called Pfiesteria, and said fish were left vulnerable to infection due to a large influx of freshwater that carried industrial pollutants, pesticides and fertilizers.

“They definitely have lesions, but it is consistent with what we usually see in the spring in Mobile Bay. They look like the lesions we usually see each year after the water warms up,” said Chris Blankenship, director of the Alabama Marine Resources division.

“We’ll get somebody down there and catch some. Out of an abundance of caution we need to take a look, given everything that has happened in the last two years.”

Valentine agreed that it was important to follow up given the possible connection to the oil spill.

“All we’ve done so far is test for acute effects,” Valentine said, discussing the bulk of science done since the spill. “We haven’t looked at the possible chronic effects that are more subtle and take a long time to develop. That may be what you’re seeing in these fish. Or it could be completely unrelated to BP.”

(Press-Register reporter Jeff Dute contributed to this report.)

© 2012 al.com. All rights reserved.

I bet it will be some common form of bacteria or virus. Given the weather roller-coaster we have been on, our fished are stressed and this kinda stuff just happens.

Seems to happen every time of the year this year. Two years ago, it seems that most of the croaker and flounder I caught in the bay had these. We sent some to the state for testing. They said what it was, but I cant remember.

Catch and release -- that's my plan for fish that look like that.

It would seem the 'mystery' ailment is solved:
http://blog.al.com/live/2012/02/fish...sed_by_pa.html

[size=14pt]Outbreak of red sores on fish likely caused by parasites, scientists say[/size]
Published: Saturday, February 18, 2012, 6:39 AM Updated: Saturday, February 18, 2012, 7:41 AM
By Ben Raines, Press-Register

[img width=380 height=285]http://media.al.com/live/photo/10433518-large.jpg[/img]
[size=6pt]A rash of fish with red sores on their bodies in surf off Dauphin Island appears to be winding down.
While two thirds of the fish caught by the newspaper in early January had sores, no sick fish were caught on a trip last week.
Scientists said sea lice and other small parasites were likely to blame.
Numerous lice are visible in this photo. (Ben Raines/Press-Register)[/size]

An outbreak of red sores on whiting caught in the surf on Dauphin Island was most likely caused by small parasites, scientists said.

During an early January fishing trip, 14 of 21 fish caught by the Press-Register had lesions of some kind on their bodies, including red sores and fin rot. At the time, surf fishermen on Dauphin Island reported catching a lot of fish with the sores.

On subsequent fishing trips by the newspaper, fewer sick fish were caught, with no sick fish caught on a trip last week.

Scientists at the Dauphin Island Sea Lab said they were receiving fewer reports of fish with sores, possibly suggesting the January disease outbreak had tapered off.

State officials said they had not caught any fish with lesions during recent sampling, but had received a few phone calls from recreational anglers reporting sick fish.

Will Patterson, a Sea Lab scientist specializing in fish diseases and parasites, said the sores seen on the whiting and black drum were likely caused by small parasites, primarily isopods and smaller copepods commonly referred to as sea lice.

“These parasites are common in our waters,” said Patterson, who conducted research after the BP spill on red snapper and other fish that had bloody lesions on their bodies. He noted that in the fall and spring following the spill, fish were observed with unusually “heavy” parasite loads.

“None of the images I have seen to this point from fish collected around Dauphin Island over the past couple weeks have been of fish with large open lesions like we saw periodically from winter/spring until fall 2011” Patterson said.

He has been collecting samples of internal organs from the fish to investigate possible connections between the oil and increased susceptibility to parasites and disease.

“We are still working through fish liver and bile samples to get a sense of whether there might be a link between exposure to (oil) and parasite loads,” Patterson said.

In January, the newspaper sent a half-dozen whiting with visible sores to the Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission for analysis, but lab results are not yet available.

Marine parasite populations in the surf zone fluctuate dramatically from year to year and location to location, said Micah Bakenhaster, a research associate with the Florida commission. He said water quality, temperature and a host of other factors are at play when it comes to the abundance of sea lice and other creatures.

“Certainly a weakened immune system could be a factor that would explain an intense infection,” Bakenhaster said. “Could be a lot of hosts packed into a small area, could be temperature, it could just be a really good year for the parasites.”

Mississippi/Alabama SeaGrant director LaDon Swann caught a number of whiting with sores on them in January while fishing in the surf on Dauphin Island. While most of the fish he caught appeared healthy, he said he had never encountered so many sea lice.

“Everything I caught, the redness, the sores, they seemed to be caused by the sea lice,” Swann said. “You wouldn’t normally see that. A healthy fish shouldn’t have that many lice on them.”

Numerous sea lice were visible on fish caught by the newspaper, even on fish without apparent blemishes. The small, translucent creatures cling to fish bodies and scurry across their flesh.

Kevin Anson, with the Alabama Division of Marine Resources, said the red areas seen on the whiting could be caused by parasites, bacteria or injuries.

“Typically, water temperature fluctuations can weaken the immune response in fish, which may result in higher incidences of bacterial or viral infections and possibly parasites,” Anson said.

Water temperatures this year have been warmer than normal, and fluctuated significantly with warm weather around New Year’s Eve.

“The water temperatures have stabilized over the last couple of weeks and this might be the reason why you have seen fewer fish with lesions,” Anson said.

MAKES SPRINGER THINK, BUT IF I CATCH THEM, I AM FRYING ,THE CHIT OUT OF THEM.WOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO. :eat: :eat: :headbang:

We catch a lot of crappie and bass with spots like that, but theirs are caused by a parasite. Just cut the little critters out and the red flesh around it....350 degrees in hot oil fixes a lot of problems.

[quote author=Rich1 link=topic=465.msg5844#msg5844 date=1329841655]
We catch a lot of crappie and bass with spots like that, but theirs are caused by a parasite. Just cut the little critters out and the red flesh around it....350 degrees in hot oil fixes a lot of problems.
[/quote] WOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO, KILL-EM AND FRY-EM. :guns: :eat: :headbang: ITS ALL GOOD , WITH SOME HOT A$$ GREASE. :bow: :eat: :yippee: WOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO. :fishing: :headbang: