Fish shtick? Veterinarian’s knockout idea has promise

Fish shtick? Veterinarian’s knockout idea has promise
July 30, 2012

Waterville, Maine, USA – Simple concoction could change the way fish are anesthetized, making them easier to evaluate. Russell Danner, a Waterville veterinarian, is seeking a patent on a mixture of spearmint and wintergreen oils that he says will knock a fish out cold. "That cool sensation that you get when you use a spearmint toothpaste -- that's really anesthesia of your taste buds," Danner said. And for animals that breathe water, like fish, crustaceans and amphibians, that same effect causes a loss of consciousness.

Danner, who bought New England Animal Hospital in March, has worked for the state as a fish pathologist, and also teaches at Colby College. While working for the state, he saw a problem. Fish need to be weighed for various purposes, most commonly by aquaculture operations that are tracking the growth and health of their animals. "But you can't weigh a fish in water," he said. "A fish is designed to weigh nothing in the water. Out of water, they flop around. In order to weigh a fish, you have to knock it out."

The chemical currently used across the country to anesthetize fish, ethyl 3-amitobenzoate methanesulfonic acid salt, is dangerous to humans, so fish treated with it can't be eaten for 21 days. That means that in order to weigh and release a fish in the wild, the entire waterway would have to be closed down for 21 days to ensure that fish bearing the chemical weren't caught and eaten. By contrast, spearmint is benign, and can be found in any grocery store.

Danner worked with students at Colby to come up with the right mixture of natural oils to do the trick. He tried cloves, oranges and cinnamon, each of which worked to some extent, but had drawbacks. He's now satisfied that he has it just right, after having tried the mixture on minnows, trout, salmon, catfish and even lobsters and sharks. The amount of spearmint needed to knock out a fish is tiny, he said, less than what's in a single stick of gum. "I'm trying to figure out how to knock a fish out with an actual stick of gum and a glass of water," he said. "It's a parlor trick I haven't quite mastered."

One pound of Danner's product, Fish-Eezzz, is enough to treat 80 gallons of water, which has the power to knock out thousands of fish. Fish that are put into a bucket of treated water fall asleep in four minutes, going belly-up. Four minutes after they're put back into fresh water, they wake up and swim off. The patent has been in the works for nearly two years, he said, and should be approved within the next month or two.

Danner is working with the Food and Drug Administration in an effort to bring his product to market, but he said that he has been stymied so far. The federal entity considers Fish-Eezzz a blend of two independent pharmaceutical agents that must undergo testing in … .

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I'm waiting for a link for the full story. It wasn't provided on the list serve I got this from.

Leave it to the federal government to call spearment, and wintergreen, "pharmaceutical agents" When they find a good use for poison ivy, they will step in and try to label it.

So true.

Here's a link to the entire story:

http://www.presshera...2012-07-29.html

That's complete bull$h!t. If you put a container of water weighing one 1000 grams on a scale and add a 200 gram fish, it will then weigh 1200 grams. Whatever school gave this "veterinarian" a degree must have pretty low standards.

"But you can't weigh a fish in water," he said. "A fish is designed to weigh nothing in the water. Out of water, they flop around. In order to weigh a fish, you have to knock it out."

I wondered about that too. As I routinely weight fish in water!

The concept of neutral buoyancy is cowering in the corner?

Neutral buoyancy is just fine, but Dr. Danner has an absurdly misguided idea of what it means.
Sounds like he learned physics from Monty Python and the Holy Grail - remember the witch vs duck test ?

there are a few other anesthesia agents that work in fish,
I also am curious about his statement " it's like anesthesia of the taste buds" It makes me wonder if the gills being mucous membranes like the tongue/taste buds are the only thing getting sedated and that the fish is going belly up due to hypoxia/lack of air rather than truly sedated with decreased respirations and heart rate etc....