On Tuesday, the Minnesota House Environment and Natural Resources Policy and Finance committee will consider the DNR's Minnow Importation Risk Report: Assessing the risk of importing golden shiners into Minnesota from Arkansas.
The report was mandated by the legislature after last year's "bait debate." At the Star Tribune last April, Tony Kennedy reported in Bait dealers want to import golden shiners; DNR says that's too risky:
Golden shiners, a shimmering live bait favored by winter walleye anglers, are at the center of an escalating policy dispute between bait shops barred from importing the minnows and fisheries managers upholding the ban as a critical defense against fish disease and invasive carp.
For years, the Department of Natural Resources (DNR) has prevailed in arguments over the ban, which prevents Minnesota bait dealers from buying the shiners from other states, including the bountiful fish farm industry of Arkansas. Baby Asian carp are difficult to distinguish from golden shiners, and the DNR also fears accidental travel of viral hemorrhagic septicemia (VHS), a deadly infectious fish disease that has been moving from state to state.
But now the state’s 500 to 800 bait dealers have a powerful ally in the state Senate who says she is convinced that Arkansas minnows are “bio-secure” and worthy of Minnesota bait buckets.
“We’ll prove this is a really good idea,” said Sen. Carrie Ruud, R-Breezy Point, chairwoman of the Senate Environment and Natural Resources Policy and Legacy Finance Committee. “If we want to expand and support fishing in Minnesota, we have to do a better job.” . . .
DNR Fisheries Chief Don Pereira and DNR Ecological and Water Resources Section Manager Ann Pierce testified last month before a Senate committee, fighting the proposal to open the state to golden shiner imports.
Periera said in an interview this week that minnow importation is still a high-risk pathway for invasive species, including the European rudd, a sort of mini-grass carp that multiplies and feeds voraciously, turning lakes turbid and unhealthy for waterfowl and shorebirds. Minnesota is spending millions of dollars a year to fight invasive aquatic species, but Pereira said the golden shiner legislation seems to be sweeping caution and past study findings under the rug.
He acknowledged the annual shortage of golden shiners for angling in Minnesota but questioned why the state should take the risk of giving Asian carp a new route to state lakes in order to appease a certain group of anglers and “high-end” bait dealers for part of the ice fishing season.
Pereira said intensive farming conditions are prime places for pathogens to grow and even if another state’s fish farming companies are as “bio-secure’’ as proponents claim, there’s a chance they aren’t screening or monitoring for all possible diseases and invasive species, Pereira said.
“There’s diseases and pathogens we don’t even know about yet,’’ he said. Pereira also said Minnesotans shouldn’t follow in the footsteps of other states when its own scientists see problems with the importation of minnows for fishing.
“It’s lots of high-level risks that are all bad for the benefit of a small number of people,’’ Pereira said. [emphasis added]
The conclusions drawn from the study and the recommendations don't look good for the bait import industry or Ruud's optimism. The cover letter on the report notes:
The report includes information on several key areas:
- Golden shiner minnows imported from Arkansas cannot be considered “pathogen-free” or “invasive-species -free”
- The Arkansas bait certification does not mitigate all risks. The report identified five organisms as having higher risk of introduction, establishment and/or negative impacts.
- Ensuring chain of custody from certified farms in Arkansas to retail outlets in Minnesota is a concern
The report also identifies procedures to reduce the risk to Minnesota’s waters from unwanted species and pathogens. These include:
- Offloading golden shiner minnows into a Minnesota holding facility for additional grading, observation, and hand-removal of unwanted species
- Testing for specific pathogens–especially those not certified by the Arkansas program –while holding in Minnesota prior to distribution.
- Developing and implementing Hazard Analysis and Critical Control Point plans, which may provide a system for identifying steps in the culture, harvest and transport of golden shiners where invasive species or pathogen hazards could be introduced and specifying measures to mitigate those hazards
The state of Minnesota and bait retailers in the state would be responsible for bearing the costs associated with developing and implementing these procedures.
Minnesota is recognized as a leader regionally and nationally for our robust regulatory system to prevent the introduction and spread of invasive species. Prevention policies are more cost-effective and offer greater ecological benefits than attempting to control the spread of species that do arrive in the state. Regulating pathways of potential expansion is the best way to reduce the risk of introduction or spread of aquatic invasive species because those regulations are simple to follow and to enforce.
Given the risks and costs identified in the report , the Department of Natural Resources recommends not allowing the importation of golden shiners from Arkansas. [emphasis added]
Will the committee accept the recommendation in favor of the health of the state's fishery--or with the self-interest of some in the bait industry? Bluestem hopes that the lawmakers won't favor private interests as they appeared to do during committee hearings about Chronic Wasting Disease (CWD) in farmed whitetails over the state's wild deer herd.
Perhaps there's an economic opportunity here, as a blogger at the UW-Madison Center for Limnology suggested last year:
While we agree there are safe ways to get bait, we also acknowledge that it’s really hard to know what you’re getting – or, as Minnesota DNR fisheries chief, Don Pereira, told the Minneapolis Star Tribune, “there’s diseases and pathogens we don’t even know about yet.”
You can read more about the debate and about current bills by the Minnesota lawmakers to overturn the MDNR’s ban in this excellent piece in the Star Tribune. And, if you are an entrepreneur in Minnesota, maybe it’s time to start a shiner farm?
That might also posed risks if some ruthless souls started importing bootleg shiners.
Here's the report:
Minnow Importation Risk Report: Assessing the risk of importing golden shiners into Minnesota from Arkan... uploaded by Sally Jo Sorensen on Scribd
Photo: A golden shiner, via the Wisconsin blog.
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