16 JUNE 2022 • WORLD AQUACULTURE • WWW.WA S .ORG natural stocks on the East andWest Coasts of Canada introduced the Pacific oyster, the Manila clam and several other species to the West Coast of Canada and several other non-native species of finfish and shellfish to the East coast —all with the express purpose of rejuvenating dwindling native seafood stocks or enhancing fishery productivity for recreational or commercial purposes across the nation. All of these “restorative aquaculture efforts” employed fairly well-established freshwater and saltwater hatchery-nursery principles of aquaculture (read: enhancement) developed by Europeans and Asians and adapted to Canadian conditions. It was not until the second part of the last century, in the 1960s, roughly six decades ago, that Canadian scientists with the Fisheries Research Board of Canada (Fisheries and Oceans predecessor), local universities inland and on the coasts, and provincial governments started to experiment with production techniques of various native and non-native freshwater and saltwater species of animals and plants for commercial aquaculture purposes, to create sustainable seafood farming industries from coast to coast to coast. Canada is blessed with an abundance of freshwater and Background and History To use a quote from the famous explorer Jacques Cousteau in 1971: “We must plant the sea and herd its animals using the sea as farmers instead of hunters. That is what civilization is all about — farming replacing hunting.” Well, as it turns out, this farming of the seas began on the North American continent hundreds if not thousands of years ago with First Nations and indigenous peoples ranching and carefully managing local seafood resources in a sustainable farming fashion. Fast forward to the 1800s and European settlers, in what is now known as Canada, began restorative aquaculture primarily for pond and lake enhancement of freshwater salmonid stocks for sport fisheries using basic aquaculture techniques. The first marine finfish hatchery in North America (cod incubation and release of fry) was established over several years in the 1880s by a Norwegian scientist, who released billions of small fish into the Atlantic Ocean in Newfoundland with the hopes of enhancing local stocks that had plummeted in the previous decades. In the early 1900s, attempts to restore a variety of dwindling Aquaculture in Canada Cyr Couturier and Darrell Green A compliance and certification coordinator with a farmmanager on a remote salmon farm in Newfoundland (MOWI Canada East) monitor fish appetite, feeding behavior and environmental conditions in real time on a state-of-theart, fixed feeding barge (Photo: D. Green, NAIA). New farm employees learning the ropes on a Newfoundland salmon farming site. Recruitment is difficult in rural and remote regions of Canada and there is an annual labor gap in the sector nationally. However, there is hope as more and more young people become aware of the opportunities for sustainable seafood production, year-round employment, in well-paying positions (Photo: D. Green, NAIA). Cold Ocean Salmon nursery operation in St. Albans, NL. One of the first large scale RAS facilities built 15 years ago and producing roughly 600,000 post-smolts of 300+ g (Photo: C. Couturier, Memorial University). Badger Bay Mussel Farms, NL, seed collection farm. Farms have prescribed navigational channels and site markings according to federal regulations. These farms are sunk below the ice from December to May in Newfoundland waters (Photo: C. Couturier, Memorial University).
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