"Creepy critters are leaching onto the gills of Wisconsin's brook trout and choking off their oxygen, stoking fears in anglers that the iconic fish may be on the outs in many streams.

Biologists fear warming waters may be behind the parasites' recent surge, further hampering a cold-water fish already beset by a host of environmental changes.

'I would say it looks like little minute rice attached to their gills,' said Len Harris, a law enforcement retiree and outdoor writer who has been fishing Wisconsin streams for about 50 years. 'It looks like they're eating away at the gill plate.'"
 
Brian Bienkowski reports for the Daily Climate November 14, 2014. [2]