Update: Whirling Disease – Spinning in circles for much needed action
March 1, 2017
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March 2017 Wildlands Advocate article, by Joanna Skrajny
Canada’s whirling disease “baptism” came on August 25, 2016. That was the day the Canadian Food Inspection Agency (CFIA) confirmed the presence of whirling disease in fish in Johnson Lake in Banff National Park. I remember quite vividly an off-the-cuff remark by a fisheries scientist then that if fish are infected in the Park, it’s likely the entire Bow is infected as well. I wonder if he knew just how prophetic those words would be. Last month, on February 10th, the CFIA declared the entire Bow River watershed to be infected with whirling disease. This means that all streams, creeks, lakes, and rivers that feed into the Bow River, including the Elbow River, have been infected.
