- Introduction to Fish Health for Producers
- Risk Management and Biosecurity
- Water Quality
- Preparing for Fish Health Inspections
- Understanding Fish Health Assessments
- Case Studies
What Makes Fish Happy?
Online Courses Let Fish Farmers, Pond
Owners in on the Secret
Release Date: Nov. 11, 2011
MADISON, WI – Fish farmers and pond owners in Wisconsin
and elsewhere can take low-cost online courses in fish health in what
aquaculture veterinarian Dr. Myron Kebus says is the first effort of its kind
in the nation.
“We fully expect this is going to take off and create interest
throughout the country, because there’s nothing comparable to it,” says Kebus,
who heads up the aquaculture program at the Wisconsin Department of
Agriculture, Trade and Consumer Protection.
Kebus developed the courses along with Dr. Chris Hartleb (AFS member, ’93), a University of
Wisconsin-Stevens Point professor and co-director of the Northern Aquaculture
Demonstration Facility, and Dr. Jeannette McDonald, director of the Technology
for Learning Center in the University of Wisconsin-Madison School of Veterinary
Medicine.
The courses arose out of a similar series that Kebus and
University colleagues developed for veterinarians. “When we presented those
courses to fish farmers, they wanted to take them, so we developed a version
for them,” Kebus says. “Even producers in other states have been asking when
this is going to be ready.”
The veterinary courses, now completed by more than 250
veterinarians from 40 states and half a dozen nations, train veterinarians to
do fish health assessments. Such assessments have become increasingly important
to prevent transmission of diseases like viral hemorrhagic septicemia, or VHS,
to fish farms. Wisconsin requires the fish health assessments to move fish to
other states and sometimes within the state. Veterinarians elsewhere take them
just for the information that is unavailable elsewhere.
Six courses are available at VetMedCE.org: