In 2015, Canada exported $6 billion in fish and seafood. Fishing is important not only economically, but also socially, and environmentally. In order to have seafood now and into the future, sustainable development of the fisheries is important. One way to make sure that fishing is being done in this way, is to recognize and reward harvesters for sustainable fishing practices using recommendation lists, eco-labels, and traceability systems. This research will study local management and governance decisions that led to changes for sustainable development in Newfoundland fisheries.

The aim of this project is to determine which families are resistant to bacterial kidney disease, a bacterial infection that affects both wild and farmed Atlantic salmon. To do this many families of Atlantic salmon from a commercial aquaculture company are to be purposefully infected with the bacteria that causes the disease to establish which families have a high rate of survival and which have a low rate of survival.

I propose a multi-species fish population monitoring project in Quebec’s largest lake (Mistassini), to facilitate community-based fisheries management. Mistassini is home to recreational fisheries for walleye, lake trout, brook trout and pike. With a 31% increase in the regional human population since 2001 and increasing fishing pressure, effective monitoring of Mistassini’s harvested fish populations is essential.

A parasite present in the Bras d’Ors Lake in Cape Breton, NS has closed the oyster aquaculture and wild fishery in Cape Breton since the initial outbreak in 2002. This parasite has also affected oysters in the Eastern US. The industry in the US has survived and is stable in part due to the production of triploid oysters. Triploid oysters grow to market size faster and this fast growth rate reduces the time the oyster spends in the wild and therefore reduces the timeframe that the oyster may become infected with the parasite.

Recirculating aquaculture systems (RAS) are land based fish farms that recycle the water from the fish tanks using multiple water treatment processes. Fish produce large amounts of carbon dioxide, through respiration, that needs to be removed during the water treatment process since high levels of carbon dioxide are hazardous to fish. Currently the most common method of removing carbon dioxide from recirculating water is with degassing towers. Moving bed biofilters and sidewall-box airlift pumps could also be used as a method of carbon dioxide control.

To achieve the goal of commercializing striped bass aquaculture in Nova Scotia, the obstacle of high (up to 100%) overwinter mortality among young-of-year fish needs to be overcome. Mortality is restricted to fish that are under one year old (underyearlings, 500g) suffer negligible mortality. Potential factors for such low survival rates identified through four years of trials by researchers from Dalhousie include low oxygen levels and exhaustion of lipid energy reserves.

Re-establishing salmonid populations to areas historically occupied has substantial potential for conservation gains, however, such interventions also risk negatively impacting native resident stocks. An on-going reintroduction of anadromous sockeye salmon (Oncorhynchus nerka) to Skaha Lake, British Columbia is succeeding, with large numbers returning to spawn. However, a recent genetic study detected strong evidence of hybridization and introgression with native kokanee (freshwater obligate form of O.

On the coast of British Columbia, both eelgrass meadows and Pacific salmon species are declining, yet eelgrass community dynamics and reliance of juvenile salmon on these communities are poorly understood. We will assemble the first large-scale dataset from monitoring efforts of coastal BC organizations in order to assess eelgrass community diversity and structure across environmental and human disturbance gradients (including boating, fishing, and non-native species).

The partner in this project is EWOS Canada, a producer of salmon feed. Salmon feed is made with sustainable and Canadian Food Inspection Agency approved ingredients. A major challenge in feed manufacturing is to support maximal growth and health of fish. This project addresses a health challenge which has received little attention in academic programs: that salmon in sea farms often have several infectious agents such as skin lice and bacterial infection.

Nanosilver is an antimicrobial agent found in thousands of commercial products, frequently released into waterways as a result of their use in clothing and washing machines, as well as many other products with potential for environmental release. Though regulations on environmental release exist for elemental silver, no regulations exist for nanosilver release into the environment. Many studies have now demonstrated that nanosilver causes very different toxic reactions in organisms compared with elemental silver, suggesting different guidelines for environmental release are required.