Goby Die-off in St. Lawrence and Lake Ontario

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CAPE VINCENT -- State officials are investigating why an invasive species of fish is dying off by the thousands in the Saint Lawrence River and eastern Lake Ontario. Thousands of round gobies have been piling up on the shorelines over the past two weeks.

The state Department of Environmental Conservation says the agency doesn't yet know what's causing the die-off. Specimen samples have been sent to Cornell University in Ithaca for testing. The state College of Environmental Science and

Forestry's Thousand Islands Biological Station on the Saint Lawrence River is also investigating the fish kill.

Experts suspect the first gobies to reach the Great Lakes hitched a ride in the ballast water of European freighters.

The fish were first seen in Lake Ontario and the Saint Lawrence River in the mid-1990s. They have displaced native species by breeding faster and eating their competition's eggs and young.

[GLF]

Officials say a disease might be killing an invasive species of fish in Lake Ontario and the St. Lawrence River. The GLRC’s David Sommerstein reports.

Where the lake and the river meet, people have been finding dead round gobies.

“Dozens in some cases, hundreds of dead gobies that have been washing up on shores.”

Steve Litwiler is with New York’s Department of Environmental Conservation. He says a change in water temperature or a poison could cause the die-off, but initial sampling suggests some kind of disease.

“Is it a disease that could potentially affect other fish? Fortunately right now the only fish that are dying appear to be the round gobies.”

If only the round gobies die, this could be a good news story. Round gobies hitched a ride from Europe in the ballast of foreign freighters. They’ve displaced native species across the Great Lakes by breeding faster and eating other fishes’ eggs and young.

For the GLRC, I’m David Sommerstein.

[CaptLevi]

It would be great if the disease attacked zebra and quagga mussels too!