Still Confused About Antibiotics in Stocked Fish

November 24, 2016

Question: I just read with interest in the Modesto Bee your answer to the question about antibiotics in stocked fish. The answer doesn’t make sense to me. First, you say that hatchery fish are treated with antibiotics when necessary to save their lives and it is done on an as-needed basis. Knowing that hatchery fish number in the tens of thousands, and no individual fish would be pulled out and antibiotics delivered to just those fish, you must be saying, yes, they are treated, right? And then you finish the answer with “none of the stocked fish have antibiotics.” Huh? (Barbara S.)

Answer: Sorry for any confusion. When the fish need to be treated with antibiotics, then they are treated as a group since most ailments would be ones that would affect them all. Antibiotics are only used when necessary to save lives, and there is a good chance that none of the fish raised during a growing cycle were ever treated with antibiotics at all.

Prior to the Federal Drug Administration (FDA) approving (registering) any antibiotics for use in food fish, they set withdrawal times to ensure public safely. Withdrawal times are meant to guarantee that residual antibiotics are either non-detectable, or lower than the FDA’s acceptable limits, prior to the fish being released.

Once all treatments are finished, the fish are held for the required time for the chemicals to work their way out of their bodies. Only after this time can those fish finally be planted and available for human consumption.

Some other agricultural industries have been criticized for using antibiotics as a growth aid. We don’t do that for the fish we supply to our anglers.