other areas. It is done for the health of the fish stocked in a variety of locations other locations. In an era when so many rivers and lakes are affected by run-off from human activity it is very difficult to maintain healthy fish in some locations and avoid spreading parasites and fish diseases.
The Missouri River is known to harbor whirling disease, a potentially lethal parasite to young trout. Although whirling disease is a concern, other unknown pathogens that could be in the river water also made salvaging the trout problematic, the news release says.
In response, FWP has decided to destroy the majority of the potentially infected 450,000 rainbow and 50,000 brook trout. The department estimates the trout are worth about $300,000.
About 20,000 will be put into the river immediately adjacent to the hatchery and 500 will go into the children’s fishing pond near the hatchery, according to FWP.
“This is an extremely tough decision, but we felt the only course of action was to destroy the fish in the outside raceways,” Eileen Ryce, FWP hatchery bureau chief and acting fisheries division administrator, said in a statement. “We take the health of our fisheries very seriously and our tolerance for risk to the public’s resource is very low.”
Likely they will turn the contaminated trout into fertilizer.
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