Fish Diseases Impact Profits

A key impediment facing aquaculture is the outbreak of disease, as fish for the harvest are usually cultivated in the stresses imposed by large populations which traditionally result in an elevated risk of bacterial or viral illness, as cited by many studies. In farmed catfish, said to suffer average losses exceeding $100 million annually, this is directly due to infection. One particularly important species in the U.S., the Channel catfish, account for well over 50% of the domestic aquaculture production; nevertheless, they are vulnerable to various damaging bacterial infections, not the least of which is enteric septicemia.