Salmon farmer hopeful after years of problems

Press, 3 June 1982, Page 17

Salmon farmer hopeful after years of problems

By

BARRY SIMPSON

The projected broadening of the Freshwater Fish Farming Regulations and the successful fertilisation of ova from captivity-reared salmon, have brought a glimmer of a smile to the face of Golden Bay salmon farmer, Clive Barker.

For six years since the Bubbling Springs salmon farm was set up by Mr Barker alongside the worldfamous Waikoropupu (Pu Pu) Springs, he has had little to smile about.

His concept of a New Zealand salmon industry based on 15 million-plus fish raised annually at Bubbling Springs has been greeted with scepticism and at times open hostility from some quarters. Throughout it all — the disappointment of not seeing any significant numbers of the hundreds of thousands of fish released to sea return to the farm, the worries of obtaining stock from a source clearly antagonistic towards any commercialised farming system, and the des-

truction of sea cages which were to prove from experimentation that the sea rearing of salmon is an integral and important part of salmon farming — he has remained optimistic. About $500,000 has already been poured into the Bubbling Springs venture and but for the sales of pan-sized salmon — to which acclimatisation bodies have objected most strongly — it could not have stayed afloat. Mr Barker confirms that these sales of 400 gm fish to restaurants, and hotels in New Zealand have amounted to about 10 tonnes a year and have provided a $lOO,OOO turnover. The fish have been processed in the Takaka area by Talleys Fisheries and some have gone to Nelson for smoking by Angus McNeill, Ltd. which specialises in fish delicacies. However, the venture, has yet to show a profit and the time is fast approaching when it will have to.

Now, at last, glimmers of light are beginning to pierce

the six years of gloom overshadowing the venture.

In recent weeks, with the assistance of his son Paul and another local youth. Brent Kerr. Mr Barker has been stripping eggs from three-year female salmon raised in the 80.000 cubic metres of concrete raceways at Bubbling Springs. He hopes to obtain two million eggs from the 500 females he has kept for this purpose. These, fertilised, by the sperm of the male fish, are germinating and. even allowing for a 50 per cent loss, should give the farm one million salmon stock this year.

So far he is having outstanding success in the fertilising process. He has been closely monitoring the eggs and believes he has close to 100 per cent germination. This is the first year he will have produced his own stock from females reared in

captivity at Bubbling Springs and it is an extremely important step forward in his plan to '‘ocean ranch" salmon.

In the past he has had to rely upon Canterbury hatcheries for his stock, and because of the demands of the seven trying to establish farms in the South Island, he has been on a strict allocations — which have always been well below his requirements.

This year, because of the successful spawning at Bubbling Springs, he is in a position to supply ova to other farmers and already two approaches to him have been made.

Ocean ranching in other parts of the world has shown that salmon receive a genetic imprint at birth that will direct them back to the rivers in which thdy were born.

Since all his early stock has come from Canterbury rivers. Mr Barker believes that the refusal of all but a handful of salmon to return to the Takaka region is the result of genetic confusion. “Salmon spawned in Canterbury rivers sWim north and south. We get* the young slock from,,Canterbury, release them in Golden Bay and they have ,tb go east before, going -south- and then north before ; coining back west, he said:-i*"

Now, it is hoped that, with the Waikoropupu River genetic imprint within them, at least a small percentage of the one million or more fish to be released will return to the farm.

"Our primary objective is to commence an ocean ranching programme. Quinnat salmon are easy to grow but do not like being moved from their parent river. Because of this we realise it will take at least nine years to build up a workable ocean return." said Mr Barker.

To offset this problem he had been trying to grow salmon in captivity, notwithstanding adverse reactions from the Government and acclimatisation societies, he said.

Recently the venture had achieved a major breakthrough in the ability to recognise immature females when grown in captivity.. “This has allowed us to grow females only for broodstock and not worry about having to grow a large nuifiber of i fish in The Hope that there will be a balance between female .and males. To.. my knowledge nobody, else in the world can .pick out and grow only- female salmon in cap-

tivity. This one factor makes growing salmon in captivity for broodstock economical for us and allows us to grow enough salmon for eggs with resultant large-scale releases to sea." he said.

He is also experimenting with the “feminisation” of fish — a complex process researched overseas which involves the feminising of male fish and results in more females being released, the “precocious male" eliminated, and more females returning with more eggs which can be used for spawning, made into red cavair or sold overseas to places like Japan as special dishes or for fish bait.

Salmon are too valuable a resource to be used only in an ocean-ranching programme. according to Mr Barker. “The marketing of cultured fish now. and even more so in the future, requires farmers to schedule production in line with the requirements of the market, and they must capitalise on the big plus over wild-caught salmon — the ability to provide regular supplies of regular quality. This can be accomplished ’ with an expanded farming policy and sea-cage culture as well as ocean ranching." In support of this assertion. Mr Barker points to Norway, which this year will harvest 15.000 to’npes of salmon from sea cages, and Canada- and the United States, about 3000 -tonnes each.

Norwary harvested 8000 tonnes of salmon from sea cages last year and holds about 3 million fish in cages. By 1985 they would be producing 20,000 tonnes of fish, he said. . Scotland and. Ireland had “got into the act" and China, too, was commencing to ocean ranch. Japan would release this year about three billion salmon to sea and its harvest would be correspondingly high, he said.

“But because they are using sea cages,: Norwegian and Scottish salmon farmers will be our biggest competitors because their salmon can be harvested at any time of the year. Their harvests are not fixed by returning salmon," said Mr Baker. New Zealand salmon farmers had to “get their act into gear,” he said. “We really havq to farm the salmon, manipulate them. But they must be farmed properly. Ocean ranching is too . much like Russian roulette — the salmon go out to sea and we wait and hope they will come back. “With quinnat, sockeye and Pacific salmon we have the three best salmon in the world here. New Zealanders

have always been good agricultural farmers and no matter what we have taken on.in the farming sphere, we've always been better than anybody else. There is no reason why this could not also apply to salmon farming," he said.’

He strongly advocates sea caging and’ although he knows that this is a highly political subject, he has gained encouragement from the news that the Marlborough Sounds Maritime Planning Committee plans to provide for salmon farming by sea caging once this is authorised by the new Marine Farming Act. The present act excludes sea caging of salmon.

Mr Barker has tried sea caging, in Golden Bay, but because his cage was broken open by strong seas and the fish escaped, the tests were inconclusive. He would like to try again but knows of the opposition to sea caging by the acclimatisation societies. Mr R. W. Little, senior freshwater fisheries management officer with the Ministry of Agriculture and Fisheries. acknowledges., there are obstacles in the way of sea caging. The societies have a fundamental objection to the commercialisation of any acclimatised fish, he said. “They don't see sea caging providing anything for the angler, Whereas ocean ranching, with the anglers getting first crack at the fish as they return, they get a kick back, as it were. They also have strong feelings about the loss of their natural stocks to pond farming,” he said.

Mr Little sees as “a few years off yet” a situation where all fish farming is incorporated in one set of aqua-culture regulations.

But if the Government is keen to see established 1 in New Zealand what could be a multi-million-dollar salmon culture venture — for which this country is ideally suited — these regulations will have to be considered with some urgency if long-term planning and marketing in competition .with other nations is to be accomplished.

New Zealand, it is so often said, is over-regulated. The salmon farming business is no exception. When the Freshwater Fish Farming ■ Regulations were promulgated in 1972. they were extremely restrictive — a reasonable precaution, perhaps, when entering the unchartered waters of fish ponding. In 10 years, however, only two amendments have been made to them —

one a definition and the other excluding trout from farming, and both in 1973 — so that they are now badly out of date.. . ’ Farmers such as Clive Barker have chafed under these regulations, the most restrictive of which are clauses. 19 and 20. These specify that the fish, when sold by the farmer, must be sold in the whole state (19) and have to be cooked and served in a hotel, restaurant or other public eating place, “dead" and in the whole state and with the tag attached (20). The tag is attached to one of the gills so that the head has to accompany the fish. Happily, according to Mr Little, this situation is about to change. Amendments — about three years in the drafting — are’ now in proof form, awaiting reading and then' the sanction of the Minister (Mr Maclntyre). ■Whereas the original regulations dealt with fish ponding, the amendments will deal with "ocean ranching. However, the most important amendments concern marketing. Salmon would be marketed in many forms, including canning, without tags, and without being whole, according to' Mr Little. This will no-doubt delight salmon, farmers such as. Clive Barker, some of whose fish, at 6 and 7 kilograms,

would look quite ridiculous whole on a diner's plate. Although tags will be dispensed with, control over the fish will be maintained through the purchaser's having to prove where he got the fish from. The onus of proof would then be placed on the seller, said Mr Little.