The virus, viral hemorrhagic septicemia virus (VHSV), is not native to the Great Lakes region, so it's hard to predict how damaging it will be to the area's fish, said Rod Getchell, who studies fish diseases at Cornell University's aquatic animal health program. "It's [infecting] naïve hosts, and it's a pathogen that's in a new environment,' he told The Scientist. "That's the scary part. We don't know what kind of effect it's going to have on populations.' Many fish species die soon after being infected with VHSV, but the disease seems particularly virulent in the Great Lakes, where it has killed several hundred tons of fish over the past two years in Ohio, New York, and Michigan, according to USDA statistics. Read full article here
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