VIU opens sturgeon research unit
$5.25-million centre to explore freshwater farming of species
By Carla Wilson, Times ColonistSeptember 20, 2011
A new $5.25-million sturgeon centre in Nanaimo is dedicated to unmasking secrets of the living fossils, whose whiskered ancestors were virtually the same hundreds of millions of years ago.
Knowledge gathered at the International Centre for Sturgeon Studies at Vancouver Island University is to help foster freshwater farming of the fish, which can live more than a century and tip the scales at 600-plus kilograms. While sturgeon are renowned for their caviar, their firm meat can command upwards of $11 per kilogram, Don Tillapaugh, centre director, said Monday.
Sturgeon aquaculture could be a "very viable business opportunity because sturgeon are very high value," said Tillapaugh.
One fish farm on the Sunshine Coast is already growing sturgeon and a Nanaimo trout farm is keen to convert to sturgeon, Tillapaugh said.
Sturgeon farming is a potential economic generator in small coastal communities, with the centre supplying fry to fish farmers, he said.
The state-of-the-art centre is staging a grand opening Oct. 3 even though construction on the two-storey, 1,208-square-metre facility was completed in December 2010. Staff and students from the biology and the fisheries and aquaculture departments study in five "wet" labs, or holding tanks, and a "dry" lab, with no tank. The centre is seeking funding to hire its first scientist, Tillapaugh said.
Living in the centre's land-based tanks are 300 sturgeon in nine age groups. These include nine large fish, originally from the Fraser River, kept as breeding stock. As well, the centre is raising 45,000 youngsters weighing at less than two grams each after hatching in July.
Peek over the top of a tank and a huge prehistoric head will rise from the water, presumably waiting for its regular meal of squid stuffed with vitamins and minerals to keep the fish in peak condition for reproduction. "They get pampered," Tillapaugh said.
Broodstock are fed two kilograms of stuffed squid daily in the summer, and the same amount every second day in winter, said Dave Switzer, sturgeon technologist. Females get extra hormones to induce ovulation and eggs are harvested in a procedure similar to a cesarean section for fish. "It is quite complex because the sturgeon will not release their eggs or produce sperm unless every condition is right," Switzer said.
Broodstock are even known by name, including Tyra Banks, Angelina Jolie, Dotty and Blue. Despite upto-date celebrity names, sturgeon date back 200 million years, VIU's website (www.viu.ca/sturgeon) states. The site also includes links to VIU's YouTube videos.
VIU has been working with sturgeon since the 1980s. Support for the new centre came from the Canada Foundation for Innovation, B.C. Knowledge Development Fund, Island Coast Economic Trust, Marine Harvest Canada and Western Economic Diversification Canada, which announced an additional $717,700 in funding this month.
Sturgeon aquaculture takes patience if a farmer wants to harvest caviar.
They are slow-growing fish, with females typically not ready to spawn until age 18, a B.C. Ministry of Environment report said.
But if a farmer is growing sturgeon for meat, the fish can reach five kilograms in three years, comparable to farmed salmon.
Sturgeon are also more robust than salmon and can handle the stress of living in a closed-containment system, Tillapaugh said.
In July, the new centre attracted 120 delegates to a conference staged by the North America chapter of the World Sturgeon Conservation Society. Another conference in 2013 is expected to draw 600.
