Investigation of Head Burns in Adult Salmonids : Phase 1 : Examination of Fish at Lower Granite Dam, July 2, 1996. Final Report.

Head burn is a descriptive clinical term used by fishery biologists to describe exfoliation of skin and underlying connective tissue of the jaw and cranial region of salmonids, observed at fish passage facilities on the Columbia and Snake Rivers. The observations are usually made on upstream migrant adult salmon or steelhead. An expert panel, convened in 1996, to evaluate the risk and severity of gas bubble disease (GBD) in the Snake and Columbia River system believed that, while head burns appeared to be distinct from GBD, the relationship between dissolved gas saturation in the rivers and head burns was uncertain