About 60,000 fish were dumped at the local landfill near Springville Thursday to prevent a fish hatchery pandemic.

"These tough decisions have to be made," said Walt Donaldson, aquatics section chief for Utah Division of Wildlife resources. "And we're not afraid to make them."

During biannual testing last week, fish pathologists detected DNA evidence of Myxobolus cerebralis — a parasite that causes whirling disease in some fish — in one of 60 sampled rainbow trout at Springville State Fish Hatchery.

It just takes one infected fish for the disease to spread, said Donaldson. So Donaldson ordered all 60,000 4-inch trout be destroyed early Thursday morning. The trout were loaded into trucks, hauled to the local landfill and left to die in the sun.

"It's one of those things the public doesn't like to hear," he said, "but that's the reality of things sometimes."

Reports of whirling disease in the U.S. first surfaced in Pennsylvania in the 1950s and has just "moved from state to state ever since," Donaldson said. It is a disease that affects salmon and trout physically and neurologically. The parasite causes the infected fish's spine to twist into a "C" shape. As a result, the fish swim in circles, he said.

The Springville State Fish Hatchery will be disinfected with bleach, Donaldson said, and a new well will be drilled to provide a source of water that is free of whirling disease. The hatchery will be closed for about a year.

Donaldson asked people to take precautions to keep from unintentionally spreading the parasite in local bodies of water.

He recommended that fish anglers remove mud from all equipment before leaving a fishing area. Do not use felt-soled waders, he said; those are an ideal resting place for spores that cause whirling disease. Don't transport live fish between bodies of water or dispose of fish remains in any body of water, he said.

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