Contaminated food removed from hatcheries

SEATTLE – Washington state officials have removed a type of feed from fish hatcheries after the feed was linked to a chemical also found in contaminated pet food.

Six fish hatcheries in the state stopped feeding the starter food to juvenile chinook salmon, steelhead and rainbow trout on Tuesday, after learning that a batch of the feed had been tainted with the chemical melamine.

“Since we’ve learned of this issue, I’ve had all remaining inventory pulled from usage, marked, set aside and not to be used,” said John Kerwin, a state Fish and Wildlife Department hatcheries manager.

Federal officials said levels of the chemical were too low to pose a danger to consumers.

Two of the hatcheries that pulled the melamine-linked feed were on Hood Canal, while three were in the lower Columbia River and one was on the Snake River, officials said.

U.S. inspectors say a wheat byproduct tainted with melamine was used to make pet food and caused the deaths of an unknown number of dogs and cats, sparking a recall of 154 brands of pet food.

Melamine has no nutritional value but is high in nitrogen. Adding it to feed makes the feed appear to be higher in protein, bringing a better price for companies that make feed for stock animals such as pigs, chickens and fish as well as companies that make food for household pets.

Kerwin was unsure Tuesday how much of the suspect feed the state had ordered or used. But officials said they had not seen any related problems among the fish fed the starter feed.

Those fish are scheduled to be released from the hatcheries starting this year.

The state agency plans to monitor the salmon and trout, but Kerwin said he was leaning toward keeping to the release schedule.

“We have something called biodilution here. They get very little of this feed. They grow a whole lot before they’re available for harvest,” Kerwin said.

American Gold Seafoods, which operates fish farms in the state, said none of its operations had any of the tainted feed.