Volume 21 Issue 2 MARCH/APRIL 2020
WATER QUALIT Y
MARICULTURE
Changing tides Rethinking water quality management strategies in the face of climate change
Ocean Era plans to expand its R&D to other marine finfish, such as this 'nenue' (Kyphosus vaigiensis), cultured at the firm's hatchery at NELHA in Kona, Hawaii. (Credit: Ocean Era, LLC) Harvesting at Mook Sea Farm. A more pressing concern for owner Bill Mook are the harmful algal blooms that have closed fisheries that typically don’t see closures. BY LIZA MAYER
quaculture’s history is littered with examples of devastation as a result of the world’s changing climate. Be it ocean acidification or oxygen depletion, they have caused the deaths of millions of farmed marine animals in recent years. Equally damaging are the impacts of extreme weather events, which are forecast to become more frequent as the earth continues to heat up. In the latest analysis of the ocean’s warming temperatures released in January 2019, a group of scientists confirmed the acceleration of climate change. They
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noted that 2019 was the warmest year on record for the oceans and saw the biggest single-year spike in temperature in 10 years. “It is a sobering reminder that human-caused heating of our planet continues unabated,” Dr. Michael Mann, Penn State University professor and member of the study team, told The Guardian. While sea pen grow-out farms are constantly on the path of destruction resulting from extreme weather events, land-based fish hatcheries are not immune to the consequences of a warming global climate.
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COMMENTARY
Unintended consequence
Photo: © lllonajalll / Adobe Stock
Hatcheries feel the heat from Australia’s raging bush fires
Hatchery, R&D take on work to support Hawaii's quest for mariculture excellence BY LIZA MAYER
s Hawaii’s aquaculture industry continues to accelerate, its major players are focusing resources on research and developing protocols for selective breeding, larval production and feed formulations – all to support the growing trend toward offshore mariculture. One company, Ocean Era LLC, is investing in a next-gen research facility that will boost the Aloha State’s ambitions to become a center of excellence in offshore mariculture. “If we are going to grow offshore aquaculture so we can feed nine billion people and to be able to move away from reliance on marine animal proteins, we need to be able to do this in a way that is scalable,” says Neil Anthony Sims.
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BY JOHN MOSIG
t’s often been said that the aquaculture industry – being extremely sensitive to changing conditions – is the canary down the mine for the impact of climate change. In Australia, the uncontrollable fires currently raging, as of this writing, began in early September following years of below average rainfall and three consecutive years of searing drought. And the consensus that they are a consequence of global warming driven by CO2 emissions is becoming widely accepted. The hatchery sector, relying as it does on sales to the grow-out sector, is not just directly vulnerable to fire damage but is affected by what happens in other parts of the industry.
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