Evaluating the role of aquaculture support vessels in disease transmission in marine aquaculture in Norway
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1
University of California Davis, United States
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2
Norwegian Veterinary Institute, Norway
Norwegian salmonid farming sites spread over 3000 km from the farthest north to south of the country. In this context, reared salmonids are moved extensively over short or long distances throughout their life cycle from hatchery to slaughtering, and marine salmonid farms are attended by numerous support vessels. This creates a very complex scenario, where the effect of fish transport and other support vessels in disease spread is not well understood. In this study we aim at characterizing the home range of well boats carrying live fish and other aquaculture support vessels and the impact the density of these movements has on mortality and disease at the marine farm level. First, we reconstructed the exact routes of aquaculture support vessels using an automatic tracking system for identifying and locating vessels. Second, we estimated the home range and utilization distribution of the Norwegian coast by these boats through home range analysis, and extracted this latter value for all active marine farms (n=470). Finally we fitted a Poisson and a logistic regression model for evaluating the association between mortality rate, selected infectious diseases and aquaculture support vessels utilization density. Results indicate that during the study period the highest density of aquaculture support vessel movement was in the southwest of the country, and that the utilization density of well boats was significantly associated with higher mortality rates and PD incidence. We conclude that high frequency of well boat movement in the proximity of farms is associated with detrimental effects in fish health and farm productivity. The results of this project could prove useful for optimization of the routes of service boats in the country.
Acknowledgements
We would like to acknowledge the support and funding from the Norwegian Veterinary Institute for this ongoing research project, and the records provided by the salmon farmers, ANTEO AS, and the Norwegian Food Safety Authority
Keywords:
Aquaculture,
Pancreas disease,
Spatial Epidemiology,
Norway,
Infectious diseases epidemiology
Conference:
AquaEpi I - 2016, Oslo, Norway, 20 Sep - 22 Sep, 2016.
Presentation Type:
Oral
Topic:
Aquatic Animal Epidemiology
Citation:
Yatabe
T,
Tavornpanich
S and
Martínez-López
B
(2016). Evaluating the role of aquaculture support vessels in disease transmission in marine aquaculture in Norway.
Front. Vet. Sci.
Conference Abstract:
AquaEpi I - 2016.
doi: 10.3389/conf.FVETS.2016.02.00067
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Received:
20 Sep 2016;
Published Online:
21 Sep 2016.
*
Correspondence:
DVM. Tadaishi Yatabe, University of California Davis, Davis, California, 95616, United States, tadaishi@gmail.com