Volume 19 Issue 6 NOVEMBER/DECEMBER 2018
INNOVATION
BREEDING
Dr Wade Wilson, geneticist at the Southwestern Native Aquatic Resources and Recovery Center in Dexter, New Mexico, guides broodstock management for Apache trout. (Photo: USFWS)
Frozen in time The Marine Aquaculture Centre in Singapore hopes to be the resource hub for tropical aquaculture research in the region.
Spearheading aquaculture development in Southeast Asia Singapore’s Marine Aquaculture Centre is making its mark in large-scale hatchery technology, thanks to R&D initiatives that highlight its potential in aquaculture. BY BONNIE WAYCOTT
ocated on St John’s Island in Singapore, the Marine Aquaculture Centre (MAC) is a strategic initiative of the Agri-Food & Veterinary Authority of Singapore (AVA). Established in 2003, it develops and harnesses technology to facilitate the progress and expansion
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of large-scale hatchery and aquaculture production in Singapore and the region. Its key focus is tropical aquaculture, including fish breeding and genetics, nutrition and health and the development of aquaculture technology such as closed containment recirculating aquaculture systems (RAS). continued on page 12
PRODUC TION
Threat looms over New Brunswick’s oyster industry Opportunities for commercial hatcheries beckon
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Wild spat on coupelles. Availability of seed varies from year-toyear based on conditions (Photo: GNB.ca)
he oyster industry in New Brunswick, Canada, faces a best-of-times, worst-of-times scenario as it moves into the next decade. The Canadian province aims to grow the industry by 10 per cent annually over the next five years but concedes it has limited options for ensuring spat supply. Only one commercial hatchery serves the province’s 90 oyster farmers. The industry is primarily dependent on seed supply collected from the wild. Oyster growers rely on three major water bodies for spat supply — Caraquet Bay, Bouctouche Bay and Cocagne Bay. Oyster seed collection is typically done with Chinese hat collectors, drain tiles and coupelles, usually from mid‐July to early/ mid-September, but availability of seed varies from yearcontinued on page 10 to-year based on conditions.
Arizona hatchery utilizes cryopreservation technique to boost Apache trout broodstock BY CRAIG SPRINGER
he biological clock never ceases ticking, and all living things die. But that clock can be frozen, and decay curtailed indefinitely. The implications to fish conservation are large. Williams Creek National Fish Hatchery, situated amid the ponderosa pine-studded hills of the White Mountains of eastern Arizona, harbours gold: the only captive Apache trout broodstock in existence. This hatchery, one of 70 national fish hatcheries, turns 80 years old this year. It’s a product of the New Deal era – a hatchery built on Apache lands under the auspices of the White Mountain Apache Tribe for the express purpose of raising trout for fishing. Trout fishing, then as now, helps fuel a rural- and tourism-based economy in the White Mountains. Apache trout (Oncorhynchus gilae apache), odd as it may seem, is a fairly recent arrival to the hatchery given that it sits so closely juxtaposed to native trout habitats. Recognizing the trout swimming in their streams as something special, the tribe closed off reservation waters to fishing approximately 30 years before the Endangered Species Act became law in 1973. The tribe was the first conservator of Apache trout.
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