Tracking Viral Infection in Lake Erie Fish

In the summer of 2006, students at the University of Toledo’s Lake Erie Center made a ghastly discovery on the beach across the street: dead fish washed up on the shore, and struggling fish in the shallow water, all showing bright red hemorrhages on their sides. The students and their instructor, Dr. Carol Stepien, later found out that they had witnessed the first outbreak of viral hemorrhagic septicemia virus, or VHSv, in western Lake Erie.

“VHSv appears kind of like ebola for fish, where they get lesions and bleed out,” says Stepien, Director of the Lake Erie Center and Professor of Ecology at the University of Toledo (UT). “It also was very virulent, like ebola. A lot of dead fish, including yellow perch and drum, were washing up on the beaches during these scattered outbreaks.”