An eight-year study of the lobster population in about a one-kilometre radius of a fish farm in waters off Grand Manan Island, N.B. concludes there was no adverse impact on lobster abundance, size or growth from aquaculture operations.
The study, conducted between 2008 and 2015, was a condition of a licence for Benson Aquaculture Ltd. and done in collaboration with the Atlantic Canada Fish Farmers Association, which coordinated the study. Surveying started before the fish farm opened to establish a baseline.
“We looked at two things,” said Dalhousie University oceanographer Jon Grant, who was the lead author of the study.
“One, how are the lobster population in terms of numbers, sex, reproduction status? Are they different in an area directly at a fish farm through its production cycles including fallow and grow outs? Are those lobster populations different in any way to a population several hundred metres to a kilometre away?”
“Second, if we look at a period of eight years, do the lobster populations in both areas follow the trajectory of the capture fishing, the trap fishery or are they somehow different?”
Grant said, regrading the first series of questions, “We found no difference in the lobster population under the fish farm. We couldn’t see more or less. There were the same number of males and females, the same number of females with eggs.”
Grant said throughout the study, the number of lobsters in both locations increased, “so the lobster population was always going up. We looked at the catch status from the LFA (38) and determined lobsters were increasing at the farm site to the same extent they were increasing in the fishery.”
The study results “indicate that the fish farm had no obvious impact on lobster density at any point in the salmon production cycle and that inshore lobster abundance followed trends similar to those of the general fishery of LFA 38,” concluded the abstract.
Grant said lobster quality testing was not part of the study.
“There was no chemistry of lobster tissues or anything like that. It wasn’t a study of contaminants. I will say the farm underwent sea lice treatments during the study, so if at some point there were chemicals in the sediment but it wasn‘t indicated by the response of lobsters.”
Grant has studied both shellfish and finfish aquaculture for about 30 years and is the industrial research chair in sustainable aquaculture for the National Sciences Engineering Research Council (NSERC), the primary science funding agency in Canada. Cooke Aquaculture Ltd. is the industrial sponsor.
“They (NSERC) have what they call partnership programs where companies partner with university researchers to take up long-term research studies,” said Grant.
“They have it in everything from medical sciences to water quality, engineering and energy, to battery technology. The requirements are that the company has to put some amount of money in, the federal government puts in some money and they fund research. Some people have assumed Cooke gave money to Dalhousie and Dalhousie did what they wanted. That couldn’t be further from the truth. It’s a heavily scrutinized program, (with) international scientists reviewing the initial proposal, the results as you go along and it is a federally regulated program.”
Grant said “aquaculture is a field like many others that requires help from science. It has problems like any others. We know all food production systems have their issues. Science has a role in assisting in this to improve sustainability, to give people confidence that the food they eat and the way they are produced are healthy and safe. That’s the kind of thing we work on. We don’t work to decide aquaculture yes or no. We work to make it more sustainable.”
