Ireland is to join Scotland and Norway to study a fish virus that is wiping out stocks of farmed fish on the west coast, writes Lorna Siggins, Marine Correspondent.
Ireland, Scotland and Norway have agreed to co-operate on research into the causes of pancreas disease, which has cost the Irish salmon farming industry an estimated €12.75 million in losses over two years.
The Government is committing €800,000 towards new initiatives, while scientists and industry representatives in Ireland, Scotland and Norway are meeting every six months to exchange information.
"Up until the beginning of this year, this disease was seen as an Irish problem, but now both Norway and Scotland are mobilising their tremendous resources to tackle it," says Micheál Ó Cinnéide, director of marine environment and food safety at the Marine Institute in Galway.
Pancreas disease (PD) was identified in Scotland about 30 years ago, and first made its mark on the Irish salmon-farming industry in the early 1990s when almost half of all losses were attributed to it. In 1994, scientists at the Stormont laboratory in Belfast identified the causative alpha virus. The disease went into abeyance in the mid 1990s, but has re-emerged in the last two to three years in northern Europe, including Ireland.
It couldn't have returned at a worse time, according to Richie Flynn, chief executive of the Irish Salmon Growers' Association (ISGA). Norwegian dumping of farmed salmon on the European market - which has prompted EU Commissioner Peter Mandelson to formulate trade protection measures - has had a very severe impact on the Irish industry. Throw in PD, and the result is that Irish finfish output has fallen from 25,000 tonnes to 14,000 tonnes since 2001.
Curiously, the disease has been focused on sites in Galway, Mayo and Donegal while the south-west coastline has survived relatively unscathed, according to Ó Cinnéide. "We don't quite know why this is, but it may be due to a combination of reasons, including marine environment, husbandry practices and strain of fish," he speculates.
Up till now, the Marine Institute and Údaras na Gaeltachta have been funding trials on three farms in Connemara to see if certain strains of fish are more vulnerable. Disease expert Dr Hamish Rodger of Vet-Aqua International in Oranmore, Co Galway, is also updating work on an epidemiological study which he published in 2003, while funding has been allocated for research in University College, Dublin, and Queen's University, Belfast.
A vaccine has been developed but trials have yielded mixed results to date. The new Irish initiatives include appointment of a co-ordinator into research on viral diseases, agreement on several joint research projects with Norway and Scotland and a call by the Marine Institute for proposals to work on site investigations and disease management relating to the virus.
The Marine Institute says that the broad aim of the NDP's marine research, technological development and innovation (RTDI) project is to determine the aetiology, life-cycle, environmental and farm risk factors of the PD virus in Irish sites, using longitudinal studies, epidemiology and viral sequence studies. The successful researcher/s will be expected to identify potential vectors and reservoirs for the virus, develop screening techniques and prepare a code of practice for management as part of an integrated code for fish health.
Ó Cinnéide says that one of the key long-term aims is development of an international code of practice which helps to contain or manage the condition. "By January next year, when Ireland, Norway and Scotland have their first full meeting in Galway, we hope to be able to produce specific guidelines for industry."