Tuesday, May 22, 2007
DGIF finds fish kills on the James, Cowpasture
Mark Taylor
Mark Taylor's Outdoors column and notebook appears regularly in The Roanoke Times.
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When Jeremy Benn first heard rumblings of a smallmouth bass kill on the James River, he hoped the reports weren't founded.
Those hopes were quickly dashed.
The Department of Environmental Quality and the Department of Game and Inland Fisheries have confirmed that fish are sick and dying in the river above Buchanan, as well as in the lower Cowpasture River, primarily downstream of Route 39.
In samples taken on the James last week, as many as 25 percent of the live fish collected showed signs of infection, in the form of lesions or fungus.
The infected species found near Horseshoe Bend on the James included smallmouth bass, rock bass, sunfish, largemouth bass and northern hogsucker. On the Cowpasture, smallmouth bass, rock bass and redbreast sunfish had lesions.
According to fisheries biologist Scott Smith, many of those fish were sick beyond recovery.
"A lot of those fish we saw at Horseshoe Bend are going to die," said Smith, who estimated that a quarter to one-third of the sick fish were doomed.
Benn, a 35-year-old Salem resident who often fishes the river near Buchanan, was reeling.
"It feels like I've been punched in the gut," said Benn, who works in the Orvis distribution center in Roanoke "It's nauseating."
As with kills on the Shenandoah, where bass and sunfish populations have been devastated over the past three years, scientists don't know what's to blame.
"Every time you start looking hard at a potential cause, you get another data point that screws up your theory," said Smith, who works out of the department's regional office in Forest and oversees management of the fishery on the upper James.
The Shenandoah Fish Kill Task Force, assembled to investigate those problems, is coordinating the investigation of the kill on the James and Cowpasture, with assistance from the DGIF and DEQ.
Although scientists haven't been able to pinpoint a cause for the Shenandoah kills, some had theorized the problems could have been connected with runoff from the many poultry operations in the watershed.
Those operations don't exist in the Cowpasture or James watersheds.
Scientists haven't been able to confirm that the cause of the Shenandoah fish kill is the same as the James and Cowpasture kills. However, symptoms shown by the dead and dying fish are similar.
"It could be a disease problem," said Smith, who noted the Shenandoah kills have typically eased off by early June in past years. "It could be something that we just haven't found, or something new."
The DEQ and DGIF plan intensive sampling efforts this week on the James, Cowpasture and Shenandoah rivers. The fish will be sent to several labs for testing.
Smith said there was a significant difference between the frequency of infected fish found near Buchanan and upstream at Horseshoe Bend, which is also known as Narrow Passage.
About 15 percent of the fish collected near Buchanan showed signs of infection. The percentage jumped to 25 percent at Horseshoe Bend, and the fish had larger lesions.
Richard Austin of Roanoke County floated the river near Buchanan with a friend Saturday. They caught about 35 bass between 11 and 16 inches. He didn't see any signs of infection on those fish.
"But we did see eight or nine dead bass," Austin said. "If we would have criss-crossed the river, we probably would have seen more."
Smith said some infected fish also show signs of fungus, which the biologist described as having the appearance of soggy gray cotton.
The task force is asking for public help in tracking the severity of the kill. Anyone with information about the location of dead or dying fish on the rivers, as well as the number and species of fish found, is asked to call the DEQ regional office in Harrisonburg at 574-7800 or toll-free at 800-592-5482.
Information also may be e-mailed to fishreports@deq.virginia.gov.
