“It’s a big unknown,” said Susan Marcquenski, a fish health specialist for the state Department of Natural Resources. “There’s very little information about the effect of the virus on cool-water species.”
Despite the uncertainty, state authorities confirm that they released 270,000 brown trout this year from hatcheries where fish tested positive for the cutthroat trout virus. An additional 160,000 had already been released last year before officials got the test results.