How the Giant Red Sea Cucumber Can Improve Marine Farming
A seemingly unlikely candidate could significantly improve sustainability and profitability of aquaculture, according to researchers at North Island College in B.C. Apostichopus californicus, otherwise known as the giant red sea cucumber, is a peculiar looking, red, spiky, and squishy sea creature that grows up to 50cm long.
The giant red sea cucumber proves to be a beneficial asset for aquaculture due to their ability to remove excess organic matter from surrounding water and sediment, helping to clean the ocean floor. Sea cucumbers sustain themselves by consuming environmentally harmful waste products produced by other fish and excess food. Not only are sea cucumbers able to utilize this waste for their own nutritional benefits, the waste they produce from their digestive system has much less of an impact on the environment.
Formally referred to as regenerative ocean farming, Integrate Multi-Trophic Aquaculture (IMTA) applies extractive species like the giant red sea cucumber to filter or absorb the uneaten feed or waste from fish farms or shellfish growers. Regenerative ocean farming is intended to recreate an environment like the natural food web, resultantly improving the surrounding marine ecosystem and increasing the rate of production in individual sites.
Emaline Montgomery, a scientist from B.C., is currently partnering up with shellfish operations to allocate cheap and practical containment systems for raising shellfish alongside sea cucumbers to increase the growers’ revenues. She has also announced that in Spring, she is set to commence research with Fisheries and Oceans Canada examining the commercial feasibility of raising sea cucumbers integrated into salmon farms.
Researchers in B.C. Aiming to Improve Sustainability & Health of Canadian Aquaculture Industry
For more information about how giant red sea cucumbers could help aquaculture facilities globally, check out CBC.ca:
“Canada doesn't have a robust way of growing sea cucumbers from juveniles to adults in hatcheries like it does with geoducks, oysters and clams. Montgomery is working with the aquaculture industry to find ways of using existing infrastructure to find containment systems that could help grow them, like nets that can be suspended underneath rafts or on the ocean floor.
‘Using either recycled materials or net systems that already exist means we're lowering the barrier to entry for small growers,’ she said.
COVID has posed challenges but Montgomery says she is received ‘really, really positive’ interest in collaboration from the aquaculture industry and plans to continue this research in the lab and in the field.
‘It's to everyone's best interest if we are able to improve the sustainability and health of our aquaculture industry, both from an environmental perspective but also providing new revenue streams and job opportunities for people,’ Montgomery said.
‘If everything works as we are anticipating, sea cucumbers could be something that could be grown at any current aquaculture facility.’”
Source: This Slimy, Squishy Invertebrate Could Create A More Sustainable Aquaculture Industry, Researcher Says - CBC News
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Written by AQUAMERGE
March 7, 2021