Wisconsin Department of Natural Resources officials were scrambling Friday to gather definitive regulatory information about bag limits and other key facts with regard to an outbreak of Black Crappie Sarcoma in Lake Mason outside Briggsville.
A DNR employee on Wednesday evening informed citizens at a public meeting in the town of New Haven about the issue, and she urged local anglers not to eat the fish nor return them to the lake if caught during a brief interview with Capital Newspapers on Friday afternoon.
The disease was identified in a fish turned into the DNR in January, said Jennifer Bergman, DNR fisheries biologist, during the interview.
Bergman is working with fellow DNR officials to determine the regulatory effects of catching the diseased fish and depositing them into a proper garbage receptacle instead of returning them to the lake, and the agency also is working to determine how to tell whether a crappie actually has the disease, she said.
These and other potential questions anglers may have regarding the issue are expected to be answered by the agency by early next week, Bergman said, including a photograph of the “lesions” on the fish that represent a symptom of the disease.
The few fishermen found Friday afternoon on the south side of the 882-acre lake near Briggsville indicated they had not heard about the warning, and one who caught two crappie and returned them to the lake said he did not notice any lesions on the fish.
“They looked OK to me,” said the Illinois man who identified himself as “Kevin.”
http://www.wiscnews.com/portagedailyregister/news/local/article_4ed9ac51-4c07-5b54-9a63-577a5b60e2aa.html
