Montana Researchers Optimistic About Whirling Disease

May 22, 2009 By: Marshall Cutchin

Citing the tremendous rebound in rainbow trout populations in the Madison River and the discovery of a wild trout populations that are resistant to the disease, researchers say big losses in trout numbers are now unlikely. “Dick Vincent, one of [ecologist Billie Kerans’s] longtime collaborators and recently retired as whirling disease coordinator for the Montana Department of Fish, Wildlife and Parks, said, ‘The worst case scenario was drawn and didn’t happen in Montana.'” This article also contains an excellent synopsis of the current knowledge about how whirling disease develops and is spread. Evelyn Boswell on Montana.edu.