sockeyefry2
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Salmon health research project gets underway in B.C.
Canada: An in-depth study aimed at investigating the role of disease among juvenile, out-migrating salmon will be looking at both “wild” and farmed salmon stocks
Tips en venn Utskriftsvennlig
Odd Grydeland
The overwhelming majority of data related to the health of salmon in British Columbia collected over the past thirty years comes from the province’s salmon farming industry. All Atlantic salmon farmers have for years been keeping track of fish health issues such as diagnostic results, mortality levels and sea lice monitoring results. The information is stored in an industry-owned database that has been kept up to date on a monthly basis. Much of the information contained in this database was made available to the recently-concluded Cohen Commission into the failure of the 2009 sockeye salmon return to the Fraser River. By the time its final report was published, the Fraser River had seen its best return of sockeye salmon in about a hundred years. And a lot of B.C.'s "wild" salmon (approximately 500 million per year) start their lives in hatcheries and/or ocean net-pens before being released into "the wild".
The lead institutions for this new project will be the Department of Fisheries and Oceans Canada and the Pacific Salmon Foundation. One of the founding agencies is Genome BC, which describes the study this way;
This project has been initiated for a variety of reasons, the primary one being the high mortality rate of juvenile salmon during their early ocean migration. There is a strong belief within the scientific community that infectious disease may be a significant factor in this mortality, but not enough is known about what disease agents might affect Pacific salmon in their natural habitats. What is known comes almost exclusively from observations of cultured fish (both in hatcheries and aquaculture).
The project intends to clarify the presence and/or absence of microbes in Pacific salmon. To address this issue the initiative will involve a four-phased program to discover the microbes present in Pacific salmon that may reduce the productivity of our Pacific salmon. In the initial phase of the work the primary goal is to obtain collections of wild, hatchery and aquaculture salmonids from southern BC. This phase will provide a tissue inventory for assessment of microbes carried both by wild and cultured salmon in BC. The first steps also include the development of a stakeholder consultation process that will provide input to the information needs, public engagement and communications and ways to integrate research on microbes and disease on BC salmon.
•Phase 1 (May 2012 to April 2013) establishes a large-scale sampling program, running over 12 months, for wild, hatchery and aquaculture salmon that will be conducted in 2012 and early 2013. This Phase will not conduct analysis on samples.
•Phase 2 (April 2013 to April 2015) will develop, test and validate a novel, high throughput genomic technology to get a ‘snapshot’ of the microbes carried by wild and cultured salmon in BC. Validation of assay results across laboratories and platforms will provide confidence in the results and technologies implemented.
•Phase 3 (October 2014 to October 2016) will focus in on the microbes identified in Phase 2, with an emphasis on microbes that have not been extensively researched previously and that are thought to be of pathological significance in salmon. This Phase will begin towards the end of Phase 2 to expedite information needs on microbes that are newly discovered in BC salmon.
•Phase 4 (October 2016 to October 2017) will include reporting of research and presentations to management agencies on the potential utility of methods developed and the application of outcomes to future monitoring. The culmination of the project will likely be in 2017 when data has been compiled and research outcomes are clear.
Publisert: 23.04.13 kl 07:00
Canada: An in-depth study aimed at investigating the role of disease among juvenile, out-migrating salmon will be looking at both “wild” and farmed salmon stocks
Tips en venn Utskriftsvennlig
Odd Grydeland
The overwhelming majority of data related to the health of salmon in British Columbia collected over the past thirty years comes from the province’s salmon farming industry. All Atlantic salmon farmers have for years been keeping track of fish health issues such as diagnostic results, mortality levels and sea lice monitoring results. The information is stored in an industry-owned database that has been kept up to date on a monthly basis. Much of the information contained in this database was made available to the recently-concluded Cohen Commission into the failure of the 2009 sockeye salmon return to the Fraser River. By the time its final report was published, the Fraser River had seen its best return of sockeye salmon in about a hundred years. And a lot of B.C.'s "wild" salmon (approximately 500 million per year) start their lives in hatcheries and/or ocean net-pens before being released into "the wild".
The lead institutions for this new project will be the Department of Fisheries and Oceans Canada and the Pacific Salmon Foundation. One of the founding agencies is Genome BC, which describes the study this way;
This project has been initiated for a variety of reasons, the primary one being the high mortality rate of juvenile salmon during their early ocean migration. There is a strong belief within the scientific community that infectious disease may be a significant factor in this mortality, but not enough is known about what disease agents might affect Pacific salmon in their natural habitats. What is known comes almost exclusively from observations of cultured fish (both in hatcheries and aquaculture).
The project intends to clarify the presence and/or absence of microbes in Pacific salmon. To address this issue the initiative will involve a four-phased program to discover the microbes present in Pacific salmon that may reduce the productivity of our Pacific salmon. In the initial phase of the work the primary goal is to obtain collections of wild, hatchery and aquaculture salmonids from southern BC. This phase will provide a tissue inventory for assessment of microbes carried both by wild and cultured salmon in BC. The first steps also include the development of a stakeholder consultation process that will provide input to the information needs, public engagement and communications and ways to integrate research on microbes and disease on BC salmon.
•Phase 1 (May 2012 to April 2013) establishes a large-scale sampling program, running over 12 months, for wild, hatchery and aquaculture salmon that will be conducted in 2012 and early 2013. This Phase will not conduct analysis on samples.
•Phase 2 (April 2013 to April 2015) will develop, test and validate a novel, high throughput genomic technology to get a ‘snapshot’ of the microbes carried by wild and cultured salmon in BC. Validation of assay results across laboratories and platforms will provide confidence in the results and technologies implemented.
•Phase 3 (October 2014 to October 2016) will focus in on the microbes identified in Phase 2, with an emphasis on microbes that have not been extensively researched previously and that are thought to be of pathological significance in salmon. This Phase will begin towards the end of Phase 2 to expedite information needs on microbes that are newly discovered in BC salmon.
•Phase 4 (October 2016 to October 2017) will include reporting of research and presentations to management agencies on the potential utility of methods developed and the application of outcomes to future monitoring. The culmination of the project will likely be in 2017 when data has been compiled and research outcomes are clear.
Publisert: 23.04.13 kl 07:00
