A Minnesota wildlife official says channel catfish virus is only one of the possible causes of a catfish kill in the Red River at Grand Forks and not the likely cause.

Henry Drewes with Minnesota’s Department of Natural Resources says the preliminary assessment seems to be pointing to columnaris, a bacterial infection.

He says final tests at the department’s pathology lab in St.

Paul might be available next week.

North Dakota Game and Fish biologist Lynn Schlueter said earlier that preliminary test results might point to channel catfish virus as the cause of the die-off. The virus normally occurs in hatcheries where a lot of fish are confined together but Schlueter said it can strike in the wild if conditions are right.

About 1,600 catfish are believed to have died in the Grand Forks area.

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Red River catfish kill still being studied