The federal government is funding $100,000 for Sechelt-based Target Marine Hatcheries Ltd. to adopt a new technology to conserve up to 99 per cent of water and the majority of heating in outdoor sturgeon tanks.
"It's really good for us that the federal government has recognized the potential for Canada to become a new competitor in the international caviar trade and also to help ease the pressure on endangered wild stock," said Target's general manager, Justin Henry. "So they recognize the contribution we're trying to make and I'm glad they're so supportive."
Target Marine is the only white sturgeon farm in Canada and expects its first caviar harvest in 2011. Internationally, Henry said, wild sturgeon stock have depleted drastically since the 1991 collapse of the Soviet Union, which created five new countries on the shores of the Caspian Sea historical bastion of the world's sturgeon and led to a dramatic escalation in sturgeon poaching and a sharp decline in fish numbers.
"That's how aquaculture started," he said. "The wild fish decline, and the demand is there."
Together with matching funds from the company, he said, the government money will cover the costs of a pilot project to retro-fit two of the company's approximately 30 tanks. The new technology will allow the tanks to re-use 99 per cent of water, as opposed to the current 50 per cent. Also it will reduce energy needs, as only one per cent of the incoming water will be "new" water that has to be brought up to temperature.
"If this works out well, then it's something that we could possibly incorporate to some of the other tanks," Henry said.
The federal funding comes through the Aquaculture Innovation and Market Access Program (AIMAP), which is slated to provide $23.5 million over five years to support "the development of a vibrant and sustainable Canadian aquaculture industry that contributes to the economies of rural, coastal and First Nations communities," according to a government press release.
"By funding innovative projects, the government of Canada is encouraging this increasingly competitive sector to become stronger, more innovative and more environmentally sustainable," Minister of Fisheries and Oceans Gail Shea said, in making the AIMAP funding announcements.
In November, Target Marine was named one of three finalists in the Mid-Island Science Technology and Innovation Council (MISTIC) Awards in the aquaculture-fin fish category.
