There is hope in the Whirling Disease issue

[Don Andersen]

Folks,

Colorado seems to have developed a strain of rainbows resistant to Whirling Disease (WD).
https://coloradosun.com/2020/06/04/c...rling-disease/

Don

[walking buffalo]

What is the hope?

To stock these genetically altered fish into Alberta waters, or something else?

[Don Andersen]

Well,
When the rainbow trout who are not native are gone, perhaps these might replace them.
Of course, the Athabaska Rainbow, who are native, should be preserved at all costs.

Don

[walking buffalo]

Or, don't introduce any more non-native fish to our flowing waters?
Let the native fishes refill the ecospace?

Will these Colorado fish do well here?
Shall we start the experimenting again?
Or should we grow our own WD resistant rainbows cutthroat and whitefish $ from local waters, save as much of the local genetics as possible?

[Lornce]

Good article thanks for posting it. Unfortunately there are only two species of trout that Alberta will support and Rainbows are no tone of them. Cutthroat Trout which I love, and Bull trout that are an eating factory in Cutthroat streams (am I the only one that sees the irony?),

[Smoky buck]

Would rather see more effort put into bull trout, grayling, and browns that are more resilient to WD than import over priced rainbows

As for bulls eating cutthroat when you consider the availability of bull trout fisheries and populations in North America we should be happy to have healthy bull trout populations eating some cutthroat as many areas no longer have them.

Plus bulls are far more fun to catch and are larger on average

[Thomas Tatar]

Originally Posted by Don Andersen

Folks,

Colorado seems to have developed a strain of rainbows resistant to Whirling Disease (WD).
https://coloradosun.com/2020/06/04/c...rling-disease/

Don

I really appreciate you posting this Don as this does represent a possible strategy to mitigating whirling disease. I do know this has been a long process for Colorado and that the original strain they stocked which was half Hofer (German) and half Colorado River (very susceptible), didn't have much success and wasn't a very good angling fish.

However, they found a native strain (Harrison Lake) that was actually already somewhat resistant to whirling disease and combined it with the Hofer strain and they found much more success. Here is a link of their most recent publication on the matter: https://afspubs.onlinelibrary.wiley....002/nafm.10878

I can also tell you that the now deconstructed Whirling Disease Program with AB submitted genetic tissue of many different wild Rainbow and Cutthroat populations in AB to the U of A who are currently examining if we have any naturalized populations with more resistance to the disease. So there may be an avenue there.

Anyways, thank you for sharing!