Pennsylvania’s top fishing manager recently wrote an impassioned
letter to the head of the state’s pollution control agency. The
fish expert called for urgent state action to address wide-
spread disease and death among smallmouth bass in the
Susquehanna River, the largest tributary to the Chesapeake Bay.
“In the autumn of 2011…these outbreaks were so severe that
approximately 40 percent of the adult smallmouth bass surveyed
had extensive lesions and open sores,” John A. Arway, Executive
Director of the Pennsylvania Fish and Boat Commission, wrote on
April 4th to Michael Krancer, Secretary of the Pennsylvania
Department of Environmental Protection. Examples of lesions on
young fish are shown in the picture above. “We need to move
beyond research and begin some action such as (creating
pollution limits for the river) before the entire fishery of the
river collapses and the time for action is too late,” Arway
wrote. His concerns are not speculative. Disease among
smallmouth is already taking a toll on recreation