Know the enemy
impact of biofouling organisms on cages and cage cleaning practices – and whether there was more than anecdotal evidence that net cleaning in situ is having a harmful effect; the relationship with treatments, and the number of treatments (it is getting more difficult to choose when and which treatment, the health managers present agreed); and changes in water temperatures and the abundance of plankton; One feed company representative said feed has a role to play ‘but it’s not going to be the 100 per cent, magic wand cure. We will be part of the solution’. He also said there was a lot of pressure on feed companies’ R&D facilities because of increased health problems and in the future there would be more emphasis on commercial trials, conducted in tandem with customers. The overall research priorities identified by the SAIC workshop were: Know your enemy – there is not enough information out there about what the pathogens are and how the host responds to them; Changing production protocols over the years, including net practices – what has changed in husbandry practice in last 10 years; Changes in freshwater practice and whether any of these compromised the health of the fish transferred into saltwater; Environmental surveillance and monitoring, treatment and mitigation measures; Stress related to handling and treatment. The longer term benefits of selective breeding were also mentioned but it was agreed that this was perhaps a commercial activity already embarked upon by companies. SAIC is now looking for key themes arising from the workshop and asked for full proposals for its gill health funding call to be submitted by January 31, 2017.
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A decision will be made on which projects to support by February 22 and, said SAIC’s Jason Cleaversmith, vital research could be underway by Easter. FF
We should “rewind the clock to see whether there were significant changes in the way fish were produced ten years ago
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