RE: exotic loach in Marysville (fwd)

[Laurie Hughes <lhughes@drizzle.com>]

I would love to go, but I am also going to be out of town those dates. I'm 
headed to hot, hot Phoenix on Wed thru the weekend. 

Also, doubt that I can make the next board meeting. My truck is in the shop, 
waiting for a new engine. Please send me an update after?

Thanks,
Laurie


-----Original Message-----
From:   Erik Olson [SMTP:erik@thekrib.com]
Sent:   Saturday, June 19, 1999 9:02 AM
To:     gsas-board@gsas.org
Subject:        exotic loach in Marysville (fwd)

Kathy & I will be gone during this time, but maybe you guys...

  - Erik

PS: Two new mailing lists created: gsas-announce and gsas-member. I'm
working on making the web archives work so folks can look up old messages
too.  I'll probably spam the database's e-mail addresses and put an
announcement on the web site soon.

-- 
Erik Olson
erik at thekrib dot com

---------- Forwarded message ----------
Date: Sat, 19 Jun 1999 08:06:42 -0700
From: Jay DeLong <thirdwind@att.net>
To: Erik Olson <erik@thekrib.com>
Subject: exotic loach in Marysville

Hi Erik.  In case you or anyone else at GSAS might be interested, here's
something that happened last week.  I'll include my original post instead of
typing everything again.  The date for the search is next Saturday June 26
(you'll see what I mean from the attached email).  And also check out
http://home.att.net/~thirdwind/WantedLoach.htm for a bit of fun.  A photo of
the loach is at http://home.att.net/~thirdwind/aquariumfish.htm.  It has
been sent to the curator of the UW fish collection for ID and as a voucher
specimen.

Feel free to join us in the search.  It should last from 1-5 PM or so, and
will be hard, hot and dirty work.  On top of that, our greatest success will
be in NOT finding any more loaches!

Jay DeLong

------------------------------------

Original message:

I got a call today from Cliff Bengston, a hatchery manager who found a fish
he didn't recognize.  He described it to me like this: "It's about 7 inches
long, shaped like a gunnel and it has 4 barbels".  All I could think was
loach.  I told him that what he has wasn't native, but that reproducing
populations of weather loaches have been found in several states, including
Oregon and Idaho.  I told him they've been found in areas of still water
with mud substrate in Oregon (from a conversation with Dan Logan--the person
who found it in Oregon).  Cliff said the fish was in a settling pond in
several inches of silt.  Boy was I glad when he said "I think someone should
be told about this.  Do you want to take care of it for me?"  So I meet him
halfway and got the fish.  Sure enough it was a loach of some kind, and
still alive (and now in my aquarium).  I believe it's the Chinese
Weatherfish Misgurnus mizoepis.  Check out the picture I found at Loaches
On-Line at http://aquaweb.pair.com/LOACH/misgurnus_mizoepis.shtml.  I'll get
back to you when I get a positive ID.

Now I'm curious if there are others in the area.  If so, this will be a
first for Washington, but there's a possibility it was a lone aquarium
release.  Only one way to find out.  I asked Cliff if he'd like to find out
if there was a population of them in the creek, and I offered the help of
NANFA members to conduct such a search.  He said he'd be grateful for any
help.  According to one paper (Logan, Daniel J., E.L. Bibles and D.F.
Markle. 1996. Recent Collections of Exotic Aquarium Fishes in the
Freshwaters of Oregon and Thermal Tolerance of Oriental Weatherfish and
Pirapatinga. 1996. California Fish and Game 82(2):66-80), weatherfish could
be predators on native fishes or parasite and disease vectors.  Cliff was
especially concerned about the disease issue.

So, Oregon and Washington NANFA members, do you want to get together for a
weatherfish search day?  We'd be going to Tulalip Creek, just north of
Everett, on the Tulalip Indian reservation?   This will be a great
opportunity for us.

Jay