Fish will swim at Eldred Preserve

By FRITZ MAYER

ELDRED, NY — Customers who like to drop a line at the Eldred Preserve and walk away with a big trout will be able to do so again this season.

There was concern at the Eldred Preserve and at other private fishing establishments in New York State that such fishing would be interrupted or halted because of emergency regulations adopted by the New York State Department of Environmental Conservation (DEC). But the DEC has eased up on the rules, making it a little easier to ship live trout throughout the state and across state lines, at least for the next two years.

That’s good news for the 15 private fishing operations in New York State that get their live trout from a company called Big Brown Fish Hatchery in Monroe County, PA.

From November 16, 2006 until March 28 of this year, the company has been prohibited from shipping fish into the state because a few of the company’s trout tested positive for exposure to a virus called Infectious Pancreatic Necrosis (IPN). This does not mean that the fish were sick, but it does mean the fish have been exposed to the virus.

According to Charles Conklin, the president of Big Brown Fish Hatchery, that situation is usually not an indication of illness. Conklin said fish, like humans, carry around many kinds of viruses and pathogens all through their lives. The pathogens, however, very often don’t cause illness because fish, like humans, have built up immunities to them.

The DEC wasn’t convinced by this argument when it issued regulations in November 2006, which required all live fish transported through the state to test negative for exposure to eight different fish pathogens. Conklin’s fish had no problem testing negative for seven of the pathogens, but the IPN exposure test occasionally turned up positive.

It turned out the DEC found the same problem at a state-owned hatchery on Long Island. On February 9, the DEC issued a press release, which read in part, “IPN was found recently in samples of trout from the hatchery on the Connetquot River State Park Preserve on Long Island. There is no known health threat to humans who handle or consume fish that contain the IPN virus, but IPN is considered a serious fish disease capable of causing mortality in young trout.”

The DEC took public comment on the emergency regulations that the agency instituted in November 2006. The public comment period ended on January 28. The emergency regulations were prompted by a different pathogen called Viral Hemorrhagic Septicemia (VHS), which turned up in fish in the Great Lakes in 2005 and 2006. The scope of the DEC regulations, however, expanded to include the seven other pathogens.

The DEC said that after considering the public comments on the emergency regulations, it was reasonable to allow, for two more years, the transportation of live fish that showed positive for exposure for IPN and five of the other pathogens.

If fish from a New York hatchery test positive for exposure to any of the eight pathogens after January 1, 2009, such as the state-owned one on Long Island, the DEC could order that all fish in the hatchery be destroyed.

Conklin said the two-year extension gives his company a shot at coming into compliance within that time.

Fishing at Eldred

In the meantime, Lou Monteleone, the marketing director of the Eldred Preserve, said that when this story first surfaced, some people assumed that trout caught in the Eldred Preserve ponds were cooked immediately and served to the anglers in the restaurant. He said that is not the case. Customers who catch fish in the ponds take them home before they make a meal of them.

Monteleone also stressed that the trout in the Eldred Preserve ponds are large, healthy adults of multiple varieties.

Baitfish too

The new DEC regulations also have an impact on baitfish that are either sold by bait shops or collected by individual anglers, and used in New York waters.

According to DEC spokesperson Maureen Wren, individuals who collect baitfish, such as minnows, for their own private use, can use the baitfish only in the same body of water from which they were collected. In other words, an angler can’t catch minnows in Lake Superior in Bethel and use them as bait in the Delaware River. However, minnows caught in Callicoon Creek, below the first obstruction or dam, can be used in the Delaware River because the Callicoon is a tributary to the Delaware.

Retail bait shops can sell either baitfish that has not been certified as free from the eight pathogens, or they can sell baitfish that comes with a “fish health certification report,” but bait shops cannot sell both types in the same store.

For shops that sell uncertified baitfish, customers can use the bait only in the waters from which the bait was collected. Additionally, there are other restrictions intended to keep the fish close to their water body of origin. Uncertified baitfish, for instance, cannot be transported in motorized vehicles.

On the other hand, shops that sell certified baitfish simply need to post the certificate in a prominent place in order to be in compliance. The proprietor of Tom’s Bait and Tackle Shop in Narrowsburg said his baitfish supplier provided his certificate, which he placed on the wall. He said he doesn’t think that the situation will have much of an impact on his business, but the season hasn’t really heated up yet, so it’s too early to tell for sure.