The Department of Fisheries and Oceans (DFO) has awarded $162,000 to Target Marine Hatcheries Ltd. for a project to advance Canada's sturgeon freshwater aquaculture industry.
"We appreciate the recognition and financial support and we appreciate that Fisheries and Oceans has identified sturgeon as a species they want developed in Canada," Target's general manager Justin Henry said.
Henry said the new project, which will take place over several years, is aiming to finesse sturgeon-rearing techniques plus achieve new environmental benefits.
"The project should result in some new technology that will help us to reduce our water consumption in some of the culture tanks by 50 per cent and in some other tanks, with additional filtration, by up to 99 per cent," he said. "So we'll have more precise control over the animals' rearing environment, which will help us to improve the culture conditions and at the same time reduce the amount of water we're using for those fish."
Henry said the current project, which will cost nearly $600,000 in total, builds on other recent projects that targeted similar ends.
"It's building further on those projects and using some of the same technologies and applying them a little bit differently - applying new types of filters," he said. "So it is along similar lines, but always looking at new technologies that come up."
Target is Canada's main sturgeon aquaculture company and the only one rearing white sturgeon, which produce high-quality caviar. This fall, Henry said, the company plans to harvest sturgeon for meat for the first time. And this winter, he said, "We may have our first taste of caviar."
Target's federal grant, which comes through DFO's Aquaculture Innovation and Market Access Program, was one of six grants announced last week for British Columbia aquaculture projects. The grants total just under $640,000.
"This investment supports the British Columbia aquaculture industry in developing projects that are more innovative, sustainable and competitive in the international aquaculture playing field," Minister of Fisheries and Oceans Gail Shea said in a statement.
