Fish Virus
 

http://www.tennessean.com/apps/pbcs....02/1025/NEWS04
Fairly scary story.
Frank Reid

Fish Virus
 

On Fri, 11 May 2007 19:13:37 -0600, "Wolfgang" wrote:
[...]
The encouraging news is [insert encouraging news
here......someone.....anyone].

Wolfgang

Still nobody stupid enough to take Shrub up on his "War Czar" position...

/daytripper (hth ;-)

Fish Virus
 

"Flytyer37" wrote in message
ups.com...
http://www.tennessean.com/apps/pbcs....02/1025/NEWS04
Fairly scary story.

I've been hearing a lot of references to this lately. Haven't investigated
it myself, so I don't know many details, but it's got a LOT of people very
nervous here. Interestingly though, they are not as nervous as they might
have been thirty or forty years ago. The never ending and ever accelerating
litany of new invasive exotic species, with its seeming inevitability, has
begun to have an effect exactly the opposite of what is to be
desired......people are becoming numb and indifferent.

Virtually every boat launch in Wisconsin is graced with a kiosk covered
photographs, warnings, and predictions of dire consequences (both
environmental and legal) for failure to adhere to a long list of futile
preventive measures. Last weekend my friend, Jay, and I encountered (much
to my surprise and disgust) just such a billboard in a parking lot at what
our informant assured us was an unknown, secluded and secret spot on a
stream that no one knows about, tucked in to a deep and steep valley in the
coulee country in the southwest corner of the state, a place that any
reasonable person would suppose an invasive alien couldn't find in a million
years.

Well, there are no secrets.....certainly no secret spots.....no Zerzura.
While thrashing through the streamside brush (an activity also known to the
uninitiated as "fishing"), I was bitten repeatedly by what I quite naturally
assumed was black locust scrub and thus didn't even bother to look at
closely. Turns out, on taking another look at the signage, that I had in
fact been molested by European buckthorn which, to the best of my
recollection, I had never even heard of before, let alone been attacked by.

The encouraging news is [insert encouraging news
here......someone.....anyone].

Wolfgang

Fish Virus
 

Wolfgang wrote:

The encouraging news is [insert encouraging news
here......someone.....anyone].

Wolfgang



The encouraging news is that epidemics (epizootics in this case) are
usually self limiting, the media tends to greatly over-exagerate the
effects of such outbreaks, etc.

You're right, one tends to become numb and different, but how many
disasters have been said to be about to befall us, and nothing really,
come of them?

Tim Lysyk

Fish Virus
 

"daytripper" wrote in message
...
On Fri, 11 May 2007 19:13:37 -0600, "Wolfgang" wrote:
[...]
The encouraging news is [insert encouraging news
here......someone.....anyone].

Wolfgang

Still nobody stupid enough to take Shrub up on his "War Czar" position...

/daytripper (hth ;-)

That's actually kind of a pity. I was hoping for LOTS of applicants. Think
about it......"Czar Wars"!

In "Gentlemen's Blood: A History of Dueling from Swords at Dawn to Pistols
at Dusk," Barbara Holland tells of a quaint custom (from down in the Ozarks,
if memory serves) in which the principles each held tightly to one corner of
a bandana with one hand and then wailed upon one another with a Bowie knife
held in the other.

I be go ta hell if I can think of better way to determine the best candidate
warrior. :)

Wolfgang

Fish Virus
 

"Tim Lysyk" wrote in message
news:te91i.7991$g63.2980@edtnps82...
Wolfgang wrote:

The encouraging news is [insert encouraging news
here......someone.....anyone].

Wolfgang

The encouraging news is that epidemics (epizootics in this case) are
usually self limiting, the media tends to greatly over-exagerate the
effects of such outbreaks, etc.

You're right, one tends to become numb and different, but how many
disasters have been said to be about to befall us, and nothing really,
come of them?

True enough, bad news sells and that's reason enough to amplify. And, yes,
many epizootics have established themselves in all corners of the world to
such an extent that most residents don't know that they aren't natives (but
then, they don't know whether or not the natives are natives, either), and
without causing economic or environmental upheavals.....that most people
noticed. But this is by no means always the case.

Precisely what the cost has been (and continues to be) is difficult to
determine in large part because the value of what is lost is not universally
(or even widely) agreed upon even when a figure can be put to it, and
because the changes generally take long enough that most people, who aren't
paying attention anyway, scarcely notice. The current concerns about a
possible collapse of the Great Lakes ecosystem due to the introduction of
VHS is a good example of how these things work, I think. Odds are that it
won't kill every fish in the lakes. Many.....perhaps the vast
majority.....will probably survive. On the other hand, this COULD be the
exception to the rule. There are only so many empty chamber in the gun.
Meanwhile, most people, even including those who cry doom at each new
invasion, are blithely unaware that the Great Lakes ecosystem already HAS
collapsed.

I grew up, and have spent most of my life, within a few miles of Lake
Michigan. The changes that have occurred within the last half century are
staggering. Today, there is just a pitiful remnant of a once thriving
commercial fishery. As a boy, I participated in an annual summer-long
slaughter of yellow perch from the lighthouse jetty in the Kenosha harbor
that would have made the proud authors of three hundred dead fish per day
adventures in the trout streams of old New England blanch. In those days,
you could, if you were enterprising and had the rare luxury of a large
freezer, feed a family for the year on the catch in the yearly spring run of
smelt, itself an introduced species. If you could afford a nickel for a
beer you could gorge yourself on free fried fish in any of a hundred local
taverns. Lake trout, perch, whitefish and chubs were sneered at by anyone
with a decent income because they were so cheap that they couldn't possibly
be any good. Granted, the demise of this seemingly inexhaustible larder was
not due entirely to the introduction of exotics. In fact, the smelt alone
is a strong argument to the contrary. Pollution and over-harvesting also
played an obvious and major part. But there is no denying that the sea
lamprey did incalculable damage to the large predatory fishes by the time it
peaked in the 50s and the alewife population exploded as a result. Anyone
who spent time on (or within a mile of) a Lake Michigan beach on a hot
summer day in the 60s should have a keen appreciation the possible
consequences of epizootic invasions.

In the last decade or so, the effects of the zebra mussel have come....or at
least started to come....to fruition. Despite encrusting every solid
surface, including, importantly, such things as water intakes (thereby
reducing their effective diameter....which can be a serious problem in
applications like cooling a power plant) and changing the composition of
beaches and lake bottom, and changing the chemical composition of the water
through uptake of carbonate ions....despite all this, it looked for a while
(at least to the casual observer) like they might actually prove to be
somewhat beneficial in that they were highly efficient at filtering the
water and thereby improving its clarity vastly. Well, that's the trouble
with the casual observer. They increased water clarity by filtering out
(among other things) much of the food that forms the base of the Lake's food
chain. This is a bad thing....very bad. To make matters worse, the
increased light penetration has also triggered algal blooms that currently
leave the beaches piled high with a reeking mass of rotting vegetation that
must strike a nostalgic chord in the heart of anyone who remembers millions
of tons of putrescent alewives and stupendous hordes of flies and maggots
fondly.

There's more......LOTS more.....but, you get the picture. :)

Just this parting thought, though. All of this would have been a lot easier
to deal with if it had just happened a bit sooner. In the 50s, the beach
was a wonderful place to go and play in the water (despite the
crowds.....which no longer exist there), but it wasn't necessary to go there
to beat the summer heat. One could have sat in the cool shade on the front
porch along any of thousands of elm roofed tunnels that used to be the urban
streets in this part of the world and been philosophical about all of it.
Anyone who has seen those streets then and now has a visceral understanding
of what the word "hideous" means.

Wolfgang

Fish Virus
 

This virus is decimating many fish populations. Transporting,transplanting
live fish and baits(minnows) is illegal here in New York.users of live bait
fish Must have a receipt for purchase.Tight Lines Marty Read more at:
http://www.dec.ny.gov/animals/25328.html
"Flytyer37" wrote in message
ups.com...
http://www.tennessean.com/apps/pbcs....02/1025/NEWS04
Fairly scary story.
Frank Reid

Fish Virus
 

Sadly the same consequences in Lake Ontario with the same time
frame,scenarios and species.Thanks for enlightening us Wolfgang.Marty
"Wolfgang" wrote in message
...

"Tim Lysyk" wrote in message
news:te91i.7991$g63.2980@edtnps82...
Wolfgang wrote:

The encouraging news is [insert encouraging news
here......someone.....anyone].

Wolfgang

The encouraging news is that epidemics (epizootics in this case) are
usually self limiting, the media tends to greatly over-exagerate the
effects of such outbreaks, etc.

You're right, one tends to become numb and different, but how many
disasters have been said to be about to befall us, and nothing really,
come of them?

True enough, bad news sells and that's reason enough to amplify. And,
yes, many epizootics have established themselves in all corners of the
world to such an extent that most residents don't know that they aren't
natives (but then, they don't know whether or not the natives are natives,
either), and without causing economic or environmental upheavals.....that
most people noticed. But this is by no means always the case.

Precisely what the cost has been (and continues to be) is difficult to
determine in large part because the value of what is lost is not
universally (or even widely) agreed upon even when a figure can be put to
it, and because the changes generally take long enough that most people,
who aren't paying attention anyway, scarcely notice. The current concerns
about a possible collapse of the Great Lakes ecosystem due to the
introduction of VHS is a good example of how these things work, I think.
Odds are that it won't kill every fish in the lakes. Many.....perhaps the
vast majority.....will probably survive. On the other hand, this COULD be
the exception to the rule. There are only so many empty chamber in the
gun. Meanwhile, most people, even including those who cry doom at each new
invasion, are blithely unaware that the Great Lakes ecosystem already HAS
collapsed.

I grew up, and have spent most of my life, within a few miles of Lake
Michigan. The changes that have occurred within the last half century are
staggering. Today, there is just a pitiful remnant of a once thriving
commercial fishery. As a boy, I participated in an annual summer-long
slaughter of yellow perch from the lighthouse jetty in the Kenosha harbor
that would have made the proud authors of three hundred dead fish per day
adventures in the trout streams of old New England blanch. In those days,
you could, if you were enterprising and had the rare luxury of a large
freezer, feed a family for the year on the catch in the yearly spring run
of smelt, itself an introduced species. If you could afford a nickel for
a beer you could gorge yourself on free fried fish in any of a hundred
local taverns. Lake trout, perch, whitefish and chubs were sneered at by
anyone with a decent income because they were so cheap that they couldn't
possibly be any good. Granted, the demise of this seemingly inexhaustible
larder was not due entirely to the introduction of exotics. In fact, the
smelt alone is a strong argument to the contrary. Pollution and
over-harvesting also played an obvious and major part. But there is no
denying that the sea lamprey did incalculable damage to the large
predatory fishes by the time it peaked in the 50s and the alewife
population exploded as a result. Anyone who spent time on (or within a
mile of) a Lake Michigan beach on a hot summer day in the 60s should have
a keen appreciation the possible consequences of epizootic invasions.

In the last decade or so, the effects of the zebra mussel have come....or
at least started to come....to fruition. Despite encrusting every solid
surface, including, importantly, such things as water intakes (thereby
reducing their effective diameter....which can be a serious problem in
applications like cooling a power plant) and changing the composition of
beaches and lake bottom, and changing the chemical composition of the
water through uptake of carbonate ions....despite all this, it looked for
a while (at least to the casual observer) like they might actually prove
to be somewhat beneficial in that they were highly efficient at filtering
the water and thereby improving its clarity vastly. Well, that's the
trouble with the casual observer. They increased water clarity by
filtering out (among other things) much of the food that forms the base of
the Lake's food chain. This is a bad thing....very bad. To make matters
worse, the increased light penetration has also triggered algal blooms
that currently leave the beaches piled high with a reeking mass of rotting
vegetation that must strike a nostalgic chord in the heart of anyone who
remembers millions of tons of putrescent alewives and stupendous hordes of
flies and maggots fondly.

There's more......LOTS more.....but, you get the picture. :)

Just this parting thought, though. All of this would have been a lot
easier to deal with if it had just happened a bit sooner. In the 50s, the
beach was a wonderful place to go and play in the water (despite the
crowds.....which no longer exist there), but it wasn't necessary to go
there to beat the summer heat. One could have sat in the cool shade on
the front porch along any of thousands of elm roofed tunnels that used to
be the urban streets in this part of the world and been philosophical
about all of it. Anyone who has seen those streets then and now has a
visceral understanding of what the word "hideous" means.

Wolfgang

Fish Virus
 

"Diamondcutter" wrote in message
...

Sadly the same consequences in Lake Ontario with the same time
frame,scenarios and species.

And the rest of the Great Lakes and their tributary waters as well. The
details may be different elsewhere, but the story is the same.

Thanks for enlightening us Wolfgang.Marty

You're welcome. But, I have to note here that the thought of anyone being
enlightened by any of this at this late date is ineffably sad and
discouraging. The Greeks named her Cassandra, but she is at least as old as
the written word, and her testimony runs to billions of pages in every
language and spans all of history.

Wolfgang

Fish Virus
 

"Wolfgang" wrote in message
...
snip
The encouraging news is [insert encouraging news
here......someone.....anyone].

Wolfgang
Insertion [No $700 or even $400 Simms waders were destroyed by the European
buckthorn in making this fishing report.]

Bob Weinberger