Transcript - Net Gain: Sustainable Canadian Shellfish Aquaculture

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Introductory music

Chris Mckindsey, Fisheries and Oceans Canada (DFO)
All our research is showing that there are more lobsters within an aquaculture site than outside an aquaculture site. So, it's like a smorgasbord for the lobsters. They are going down and there is nothing but mussels.

Jeff Davison, DVM, University of PEI
Initially, when we had the tunicate invasion in these rivers behind us and further north on the East coast of PEI, we knew little about the tunicate that we have, Styela clava (Clubbed tunicate).

Franck Berthe, DVM, University of PEI
With the tools we are developing, we should be able to give a rational explanation of mortalities or to change culture practices and to improve the situation of the industry.

Larry Johnson, Huu-Ay-Aht First Nation, BC
We've been involved with shellfish aquaculture for four years now, almost five years, growing oysters and clams and we would like to be able to see abalone grown on our tenures and have the Huu-Ay-Aht First Nation selling abalone and be able to eat the food our ancestors ate.

Narrator
Growing global demand for shellfish products is fueling Canada's commercial shellfish aquaculture sector. Producers seed, grow and harvest the diversity of shellfish species and use various rearing practices in natural or manufactured settings. They are working with scientists and government agencies to solve production challenges, improve farming practices and develop effective regulations and policies.

Funding for this research comes from the farmers, federal and provincial governments and agencies such as AquaNet, a federal research network in aquaculture.

Chris Mckindsey, DFO
Our project is looking at how mussel aquaculture influences the productivity of the [ocean] system. What we think is happening is that the mussel aquaculture sites work as artificial reefs and so we have to show somehow that they are growing better. By extrapolation, we can say that they are growing better and so they are likely going to survive better, therefore are going to produce more offspring.

Olivier D'Amour, Université du Québec
For this part of the study, we are doing scuba diving transects underwater where we just count the organisms and record what we see. The second part of my project is looking at the productivity itself, so looking at growth rate and things like that which I am going to measure.

Lisa Robichaud, Université du Québec à Rimouski
We may find out that mussel socks provide a home for a whole bunch of other organisms and that they increase the productivity of those organisms. There may be a positive effect from the mussel aquaculture.

Narrator
To get the permission for shellfish culture operations, a farmer has to provide an environmental assessment that describes the expected impacts of the farm operation on the surrounding marine environment.

Chris Mckindsey, DFO
What we are trying to do is develop protocols that can be used by the industry that are fairly inexpensive, that are fairly easy to do and that will actually give the managers in Ottawa, or wherever they are, some real tools that they can use to make logical decisions.

Philippe Archambault, DFO
We want to know where the energy goes in the food chain. Understanding both the positive and negative aspects of aquaculture will give us a global view of its influence on the environment.

Narrator
The benefits of rearing finfish and shellfish species in a symbiotic fashion is also demonstrated in an integrated aquaculture project funded by AquaNet in the Bay Fundy.

Shawn Robinson, DFO
The mussels do very well when next to the salmon farm. Now, that's not a big surprise. The mussels were growing almost twice as fast at the salmon sites than away from salmon sites.

Narrator
The researchers have been working with the Canadian Food Inspection Agency to ensure that the mussels meet Canadian food safety standards. They can prove that food safety is not an issue.

Shawn Robinson, DFO
So, basically, there's been about three months worth of growth so far on this. I think they are growing incredibly well.

Narrator
Besides salmon and mussels, seaweed productivity is the third component of this integrated aquaculture system and the focus of Dr. Thierry Chopin's research.

Thierry Chopin, PhD, University of New Brunswick
The seaweed is growing 46% faster when they are closer to an aquaculture site than when they are away. Altogether it shows that two of the species, the seaweed and mussels, are taking advantage of the food that is there anyways.

Narrator
Shellfish aquaculture sites not only attract and support other desirable species. They also provide a nourishing home for invasive marine organisms.

Greg MacCallum, PhD, PEI Aquaculture Alliance
Currently some of the issues we are facing, especially for the mussel industry, are invasive species such as the clubbed tunicate, marine algae fouling on our mussel seed collectors, as well as the green crab and the oyster thief which affects our oyster industries.

Richard Gallant, PEI Ministry of Fisheries and Aquaculture
The most significant impact of those species is the unknown; exactly what impact are they going to have on shellfish production. The definite impact is an increase in the cost of production.

Jeff Davison, DVM, University of PEI
In areas where the tunicate has established itself very well has had a terrific effect. They eat approximately the same food as the mussels do so they do very, very well here.

Gerald Johnson, DMV, University of PEI
They are amazing reproductive machines. They are able to take their entire interior surface with an alternating ovary and testicle and produce millions of gametes. So, one of these can cloud the water with viable progeny. My objective was to determine how tunicates die and how we can best use that information to enhance our treatment on the farm site.

What we found out was that this tunicate is very susceptible to fluid transport. So, there is no damage to the outside, but there is damage to the internal organs.

Kim Swan, University of PEI
I worked with three different treatments. The treatments were a line dip, an acetic acid dip and also a brine dip. It seems like the acetic acid and lime are the ones that are showing the most mussels on them.

Jeff Davison, DVM, University of PEI
We are also concerned about the environment and how it affects the environment and any treatments for mitigation. And so that's really a lot of what AquaNet funding has done for us is let us look at how is the animal dying and what affect does it have on the actual mussels themselves and on the ecosystems that the mussels live in.

Thomas Laundry, DFO
Our specific role is to look at how we can assist the industry in maintaining their productivity and also making sure that they are having the optimal use of the waters that they are leasing from the government to do their mussel growth.

Jeff Davison, DVM, University of PEI
What we are trying to do along with the treatment is look at management practices that will help decrease the effect of the tunicate on the mussel productivity.

Narrator
Shellfish farmers are also culturing new species such as the soft-shelled clam. Yet, little is known about this clam and a disease called neoplasia that occurs naturally and has devastating effects on wild local clam stocks.

Franck Berthe, DVM, University of PEI
What the disease does is transforms the cell from functional to non-functional and very often at a proliferative rate and eventually the disease would lead to the death of the clam. The idea of this project is to look at different populations of clams around Atlantic Canada and see how they behave at facing this disease and what are the environmental parameters that can influence the process of the disease and the impact of the disease on the field.

Julie Pariseau, Université du Québec à Rimouski
The first study aims to determine if different contaminants specifically fungicides, can induce neoplasia or enhance its intensity in affected animals with a slight prevalence. I am putting the clams in foam to mimic sediment.

Stephanie Lynn Synard, University of PEI
Part of my research is actually to evaluate the diagnostic methods that are available for studying this disease. I am also studying the different genetic populations in Atlantic Canada to find out which populations are positive or negative for this disease.

Maryse Delaport, PhD, University of PEI
My AquaNet project has two parts. The first uses histology studies to distinguish between healthy and affected clams. The second part uses flow cytometry to identify the two phases of the disease and to develop new tools to expand our knowledge of this technique.

Franck Berthe, DVM, University of PEI
What we really do hope to find out is if we have genetic stocks that would help us to develop the aquaculture industry based on a better tolerance to the environmental conditions that would trigger the disease, such as pollution.

Narrator
On Canada's Pacific coast, shellfish aquaculture has more than doubled over the last decade with similar growing pains. For coastal communities plagued by declining fish stocks and high unemployment, shellfish farming has provided much needed opportunities. A collaborative research project at Bamfield, on the west coast of Vancouver Island, focuses on culturing the Northern pinto abalone, an endangered species since 1999.

Larry Johnson, Huu-Ay-Aht First Nation, BC
We've been forced out of the fishing industry, we are not part of the forest industry, we looked at shellfish aquaculture as a way to go. We would help with the recovery strategy for the Northern abalone, we build our relationship with the Bamfield Community (our neighbours), and we are starting to build up capacity with the marine science centre and the researchers they have there. The biggest reason was that abalone is a prized traditional food of ours. It also, on the world market, collects a nice dollar and we would like to be able to benefit from resources that we have owned and occupied for thousands of years.

John Richards, Bamfield Marine Sciences Centre
I think we've out-planted about four million larvae and probably one hundred thousand juveniles. It's been about four years we've been into and it's about a six year production cycle to get product that is of market size.

Narrator
The program to restock abalone in the wild is dependent upon the successful development of a commercial aquaculture at the hatchery with annual sales of about one hundred thousand cultured abalone.

John Richards, Bamfield Marine Sciences Centre
This money will help pay for the cost of running the hatchery which then lets us continue on with our out-planting and stock re-building initiatives.

Dawn Renfrew, PhD, Bamfield Marine Sciences Centre
One of the challenges is to get them to successfully spawn in the lab. Another of the challenges is rearing those animals throughout the rest of their lives. The third challenge is to maximize the market value of those animals. This is also where the AquaNet project ties in.

Narrator
Studying the genetic diversity is central to the work of Dr. Elizabeth Boulding, who heads a multi-university AquaNet project on the genetic improvement of Northern abalone for commercial aquaculture.

Dr. Elizabeth Boulding, Phd, University of Guelph
The problem in hatcheries is that what you have is one female abalone that can produce over two million eggs at one time. What they like to do is something called "group spawning" where they get three or four females and three or four males and spawn them all together. The problem with this is when they get the larvae, they aren't sure whether all the larvae has been produced by only one of the females. Obviously, if this continues for very long, you end up with a severe inbreeding problem in the hatchery and you lose genetic diversity that you need for your breeding programs.

Matt Lemay, University of Guelph
What I do is take really small tissue samples from these abalone and I can assess how related they are to one another. The data from this will be used to assess things like the level of inbreeding within the population.

Dr. Elizabeth Boulding, Phd, University of Guelph
We actually realized after we began the project that we would have to have two different lines we would use. In the first one, we would select abalone that had a faster growth rate and so this wouldn't take five years for the abalone to become mature. In order to produce hatchery abalone that are suitable for out-planting, what you want to do is keep them as close to the wild individuals as possible. You would need to bring in wild stock to breed with them periodically so make sure they don't diverge too far from the wild population.

Ian McMillan, PhD, University of Guelph
We want to avoid the inbreeding, that raises other problems, and also to improve traits that are of interest. Traits such as market traits, for growth and flesh quality.

Jane Tosh , Phd, University of Guelph (14:14)
We want to know how much the variation between individuals is due to genetics and how much due to other things in the environment. Once we know that, then we can do many things like establishing our breeding program, by doing genetic evaluation, and predicting response to a selection program.

Narrator
Several months later, the team has made interesting initial discoveries.

Dr. Elizabeth Boulding, Phd, University of Guelph
Although the genetic diversity is reduced in the hatchery-reared individuals relative to wild individuals, there is still an acceptable level of genetic diversity present. So, it's this unequal distribution to the next generation that's historically been a problem with shellfish genetics, but we can solve very easily by using our DNA markers. By maximizing the number of parents that contribute to each generation, we are going to maximize the rate at which we can develop a new fast-growing cultured strain of abalone.

Chris Mckindsey, DFO
There are a lot of good things coming from aquaculture. The fact that we are changing the system - yes, perhaps we are changing the system - but we are also changing it for good for other things. It's a real artificial reef; I think it could be doing really good things.

Larry Johnson, Huu-Ay-Aht First Nation, BC
We knew it could become part of the economy in British Columbia so we thought we could join in and build one of the biggest shellfish companies on the west coast.

Closing credits