March 28, 2024
BANGOR DAILY NEWS (BANGOR, MAINE

Fish farm sowing new crop > Swans Island cod project a success

SWANS ISLAND — When the Capt. Henry Lee pulled away from the island pier one recent December day, the ferry was carrying 1,000 extra passengers along with the mail carrier, Christmas shoppers, and cargo bound for the mainland.

Inside a truck with the Maine Department of Marine Resources emblem emblazoned on the cab door were 1,000 live codfish swimming in circles in a big saltwater tank. The mottled brown creatures, measuring up to 8 inches long, were on their way to the state agency’s laboratory in Boothbay Harbor.

Island Aquaculture Co., traditionally a salmon farm, raised the cod during this past year. The Swans Island farm’s new crop holds promise for all of Maine’s salmon farms, which earn more revenue than any fishery except lobster, but struggle to compete in a tough global market dominated by Norway, Chile and Canada.

Over the past decade, Norway has experimented with rearing codfish in captivity, but the practice is new to New England. Island Aquaculture is credited with raising the largest number of cod and keeping them alive the longest.

“For people who started from ground zero and didn’t have any experience growing cod, it is an extremely impressive accomplishment,” Richard Langton, head of DMR’s groundfish division, said Friday.

Island Aquaculture’s cod crop also offers a glimmer of hope to Maine’s beleaguered groundfish industry as a possible means to help replenish depleted groundfish stocks.

Langton says some of the farm’s small cod will be raised to market size in ocean pens. But he says most of the juvenile fish are being tagged and released at the mouth of the Sheepscot River and at other areas along the Maine coast where cod have been known to spawn and spend their infancy. He says an effort will be made to track the hatchery-raised fish and see how well they survive in the wild.

The release of the cod follows on the heels of Stonington fisherman Ted Ames’ two-year project to produce a map showing the eddies, channels and other spots where dozens of older Maine and Massachusetts groundfishermen remembered catching egg-bearing and juvenile cod and haddock.

Federally funded experiment

With groundfish stocks threatened in the Gulf of Maine and Georges Bank fishing grounds, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration two years ago awarded a $500,490 grant enabling Island Aquaculture and another Maine salmon farm, Atlantic Aquafarms Inc., to try to raise cod and possibly haddock.

The funds came from a $4.5 million federal grant program to help the New England fishing industry weather the severe impact of more federal regulations imposed to rebuild cod, haddock and yellowtail flounder stocks in southern New England, the Gulf of Maine and Georges Bank.

Maine’s salmon industry was also interested in cod as an alternative species because the fish withstand frigid ocean water better and are not as susceptible as salmon to “superchills” — when ocean temperatures sink below the freezing point of salt water (28.6 degrees).

Atlantic Aquafarms in East Franklin traditionally hatched and raised Atlantic salmon, but the company modified part of its hatchery to produce cod.

Like Island Aquaculture, Atlantic Aquafarms succeeded in hatching and raising cod to a decent size. But last summer, the juvenile fish began developing enlarged livers and inflated swim bladders. By early fall, the entire cod crop had died.

To make matters worse, Atlantic Aquafarms’ owners recently announced the hatchery and fish farm are being downsized and put up for sale. They cited inadequate government support for aquaculture and price pressure from foreign producers such as Norway and Chile.

“I think it’s just a quirk of fate Atlantic Aquafarms’ cod died,” Langton said. “Thank goodness we had two hatcheries with competent staffs.”

Personal commitment

A half-hour ferry ride from Mount Desert Island, Swans Island has 350 year-round inhabitants. Besides lobstering, there are few year-round jobs. Most islanders who are not lobstermen raise or process fish at the salmon farm, do carpentry and rely on other seasonal work to make a living.

One recent blustery day, as the wind whistled and combers rolled into Burntcoat Harbor, Island Aquaculture manager Sonny Sprague Jr. attributed the cod hatchery’s success to hard work, common sense and a personal commitment on the part of its two staffers, Monica Cease and Arthur Stinson.

A microbiologist by education, Cease tends the cod, processes salmon, does the bookkeeping and just about anything else that’s needed at Island Aquaculture. She is also the island’s town clerk and mother of a 4-year-old boy. Her husband also works at the salmon farm.

Cease says Island Aquaculture’s success is key to her family’s future on Swans. So she has a personal interest in the codfish experiment.

“You have to be right here and they have to be fed. You can’t take off for the weekend,” the microbiologist said, noting the fish are cannibalistic and will eat each other unless they are well-fed.

On the job at 5:20 a.m., six days a week, Arthur Stinson works side by side with Cease. His livelihood also hinges on the salmon farm and cod hatchery’s success.

Together, Cease and Stinson have painstakingly reared the cod, watching them develop from black specks into 100-gram fish over the past year. They have shared the triumph of seeing enough cod survive metamorphosis — the most critical stage — when the fish develop internal organs and undergo other major physical changes.

“It’s like going from a polliwog to a frog,” Cease explained. “In nature, you have an automatic 95 percent mortality rate. We are trying to do as well and beat nature.”

Previously employed at the Swans Island Fishermen’s Co-op, Stinson has put his own know-how to work at the cod hatchery. He modified some of the saltwater tanks — drawing from a system lobstermen use to keep their catch fresh at sea — to ensure consistent water temperatures throughout the tanks.

“When you live on Swans Island, you have to know a little something about everything,” he said. “When your furnace breaks on a cold winter night, you’ve got to be able to fix it. We don’t have any plumbers.”

While it has cleared critical hurdles, Island Aquaculture faces greater challenges ahead. The salmon farm might team up with University of Maine scientist Linda Kling, who has landed a $400,000 federal grant to try to raise cod, haddock and other groundfish on a much larger, commercial scale. The project should show whether it’s feasible and cost-efficient for Maine salmon farms to diversify and raise other species.

“If we can raise haddock, they are worth a little bit more than cod. Then, there’s halibut …,” mused DMR biologist Langton.


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