An official website of the United States government
Official websites use .gov A .gov website belongs to an official government organization in the United States.
Secure .gov websites use HTTPS A lock () or https:// means you've safely connected to the .gov website. Share sensitive information only on official, secure websites.
Inspections by La Crosse Fish Health Center Midwest Region
Updated September 23, 2026
What are Fish Health Inspections?
Inspections are a statistically based onsite sampling of all lots of aquatic animals on the facility that a Service aquatic animal health professional performs or supervises, with subsequent examination of the collected tissues and fluids for the detection of listed pathogens. Monitoring and diagnostic results may contribute to inspection sampling requirements.
What if pathogens are found during an inspection?
Any time that a pathogen is detected and confirmed by inspection, monitoring, or diagnostics on the facility’s inspection plan for a lot, or a pathogen is detected that is an emerging or exotic pathogen deemed significant, the Service aquatic animal health professional must immediately report the detection for the facility on the Fish Health Inspection Report. If it is confirmed by inspection, monitoring, or diagnostics, the Service must notify the appropriate Regional Director, Assistant Regional Director, the Chief of the Branch of Hatchery Operations and Applied Sciences (BHOAS), the facility manager, and potentially affected Federal, State, and Tribal authorities.
Why Fish Health Inspections?
Each state will have slightly different laws. Hatcheries and Fish Health Centers will follow state laws accordingly along with the Fish and Wildlife Service's policies on aquatic animal health.
Fish Health Centers use these policies and resources to guide their work:
After each inspection, an inspection report is completed by Fish Health Center staff. If pathogens are found, they will be listed on the report for the next five years. The hatchery must be negative for that pathogen for the next four years for that pathogen to no longer be listed.
States use these inspection reports to decide if they accept or deny stocking of fish. Pathogen status does strongly steer state's decisions on whether to accept the fish or what water bodies the fish are stocked in.
Pathogen status is extremely important for hatcheries that deal with threatened and endangered species. The whole program is dependent on the disease status because pathogen status will affect where these Threatened and Endangered species can be stocked.
Fish cannot be transferred or stocked without an Inspection Report. This document accompanies the fish in the truck, stocking vessel, or the receiving hatchery if fish are transferred.
Prior to stocking the inspection report is submitted to the receiving state. The receiving state then approves or denies the stocking based on Inspection Report results.
M/V Spencer F. Baird on Lake Huron
Each hatchery raised fish is an investment so we want to ensure we can keep them healthy and alive. Treating pathogens can be expensive, lead to mortalities of raised fish, and make a hatchery unusable for certain species of fish.
If disease isn't monitored in hatchery fish, it could introduce pathogens to wild populations that would otherwise remain healthy.
Who do we provide Services For?
We provide inspections for the six national fish hatcheries in the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service's Midwest region:
Genoa National Fish Hatchery, Wisconsin
Iron River National Fish Hatchery, Wisconsin
Neosho National Fish Hatchery, Missouri
Pendills Creek National Fish Hatchery, Michigan
Sullivan's Creek National Fish Hatchery, Michigan
Jordan River National Fish Hatchery, Michigan
Tribal Hatcheries around the Midwest Region contract out our services to provide inspection, diagnostic, and veterinarian support.
Several State agencies do not have access to qualified (certified) labs to process their fish health samples. States contract the La Crosse Fish Health Center to process their lab work for inspection samples.
