ANNAPOLIS, Md. (AP) — A Maryland fisheries official says a vendor who supplied trout infected with whirling disease had filed the proper paperwork.

Maryland Fisheries Services program manager Charlie Gougeon says the unidentified vendor provided documentation showing three consecutive years of disease-free operation. Gougeon says the delivery is believed to be the first from an outside vendor found to be infected with whirling disease.

The Maryland Department of Natural Resources says the disease was found earlier in May in a delivery of 8,000 trout stocked in several western Maryland streams. DNR staff stopped stocking after suspicious behavior was observed and tests later confirmed the parasitic disease, which is not harmful to humans but fatal to trout. The department says it will not accept further shipments from the vendor until an investigation is completed.

(Copyright 2011 by The Associated Press. All Rights Reserved.)