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The Koi Holocaust

By Kevin Ferguson
February 17, 2009
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Raw tragedy from the famous and gorgeous Earl Burn Miller Japanese Garden at Cal State Long Beach today, as the Daily 49er reports on an enormous outbreak of a deadly virus that has totally annihilated the garden's gorgeous koi population. More follows below:

Approximately 300 koi were killed by the koi herpesvirus (KHV). The fish contracted the virus between October and January.KHV is a pathogen that affects koi and common carp. It cannot be transmitted to humans, nor can it be cured. According to the garden's director, Jeanette Schelin, garden employees were unaware of the virus during the first half of that period, she said. Employees noticed symptoms of an often-deadly gill fluke parasite in some fish prior to the garden's annual koi auction in October. The fish were given treatments and the garden did not auction off its infected koi, Schelin said.

Too add insult to injury, the the fish were worth around $30,000 and they're replacing them with young "juvenile" fish at a cost of about $7000. I'm sure money like that doesn't come easily to the Cal State system, especially when you factor in the looming budget cuts doomed to hit the university, once Sacramento makes a budget.

Flickr photo of the Japanese Garden's fish in better times by Anchoredbyflight, used under a creative commons license.

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