Broughton Archipelago research study is vital part of process for the salmon fishery

A three million dollar research program currently in its second year will hopefully provide stakeholders in the BC Pacific Salmon Forum with a better understanding of the sea lice controversy currently raging within the farmed and wild salmon industries.

The Daily News outlined the steps that the Forum is taking in the final year of its program to try and bridge the gap between the two sides of the sometimes acrimonious debate.

The story was the front page item in Friday’s paper.

RESEARCHERS PLAN TO PUT SEA LICE UNDER MICROSCOPE IN '08
BC Pacific Salmon Forum says it will set up a special sea lice study centre
By Kris Schumacher
The Daily News
Friday, February 29, 2008
Pages one and three

In the midst of a media blitz by both conservationists and fish farm industry supporters, the BC Pacific Salmon Forum insists it is remaining neutral, and says the second year of its Broughton Archipelago research program is necessary to address further knowledge gaps and approaches in managing wild and farmed salmon.

The forum released plans for the final year of the two-year program, expected to be near $3 million in total, with efforts building collaboration between researchers and a range of funding partners.

Three broad categories of research identified in 2007 will be followed in 2008, which are quantifying fish and sea lice dynamics during the wild juvenile salmon out-migration period, further study of the impacts of sea lice on individual juvenile salmon and population dynamics of pink and chum salmon stocks.

"The first two years of Forum research showed that if we want to ensure the sustainability of wild salmon where salmon farming occurs, we need a better understanding of the complex working of coastal ecosystems," said Dr. Jon O'Riordan, research director with the BC Pacific Salmon Forum. "Our goal this year is to address some of the still unanswered key research questions that have emerged from our research to date, and build more sophisticated ecosystem-based models that will support improved approaches to sustainable salmon management."

Within their studies of sea lice, forum researchers will look at ocean patterns, larval sea lice behavior and development, as well as the effect of SLICE in reducing sea lice intensities on salmon farms and whether such reductions affect infestations on wild pink and chum salmon in the vicinity of fish farms. The biological effects of SLICE will also be studied. The forum says such studies will improve the understanding of sea lice population dynamics throughout the course of the juvenile salmon migration period and identify the sources of lice that infect wild juvenile salmon populations.

They will also be funding the establishment of a centre for sea lice identification at the Fisheries and Oceans Canada Biological Research Station in Nanaimo.

Through studies they hope to determine the levels at which sea lice will compromise the survival of individual juvenile salmon, both through laboratory work and field studies. Data from 2007 will be combined with 2008 to give an overview on the health status of out-migrating wild juveniles and better determine links between health and sea lice levels in those regions. The third group of studies will characterize the dynamics of pink and chum salmon populations in the Broughton and compare them to similar data from Bella Bella, and give a better overall understanding of both fresh and marine survival of some key Mainland Inlets systems for pink salmon.

"Because we are dealing with dynamic and complex ecosystems that include many factors, not simply sea lice, the forum will also bring together a broad range of researchers to develop a more complete analytical framework or model to incorporate the findings and emerging data of all investigators currently working in the region," said John Fraser, chair of the BC Salmon Forum.

"The forum believes this should result in a more robust modeling approach and provide a foundation for ecosystem based management in the Broughton Archipelago. This framework will also provide a basis for the incorporation of the data emerging from all of the forum-funded research since 2006."