Enhancing production in Coho: Culture, Community, Catch (EPIC4)

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Generating solutions

Status

Active

Competition

2014 Large-Scale Applied Research Project Competition – Genomics and Feeding the Future

GE3LS

No

Project Leader(s)

Fiscal Year Project Launched

2015-2016

Project Description

Fisheries and aquaculture are a $2.5 billion industry in Canada, supporting many thousands of  jobs across the country. With 25 per cent of the world’s coastline and 16 per cent of the  world’s fresh water, the importance of fisheries to Canada, and the opportunity that this  represents for Canada, cannot be overstated.  In BC, for example, seafood is the province’s  largest agri‐food export ($870 million) and contributes 2.2 billion in direct industry revenues  annually to the province. Since the 1990s, however, the commercial salmon fishery on the  west coast has decreased in value from $263 million to $24 million. The commercial Coho  Salmon fishery has been essentially closed since 1999, in part due to declining and  endangered populations. Reopening the Coho Salmon fishery, based on recovered and  enhanced populations, would bring both economic and social benefits.

EPIC4, under the leadership of Dr. Willie Davidson of Simon Fraser University and Dr. Louis  Bernatchez of Université Laval, will develop and use new genomics tools to address  challenges facing the safe, secure and sustainable production of Coho Salmon. The  interdisciplinary team of natural and social scientists will sequence the Coho Salmon  genome, document the genetic diversity of thousands of individuals and determine how  Coho Salmon from different geographic regions vary genetically. They will apply their  knowledge to revive and sustain the wild Coho Salmon fisheries.  This information will also  help develop BC’s Coho Salmon land‐ based aquaculture industry to make it more productive  and profitable. Working with stakeholders, EPIC4 will explore and understand fully the  economic, institutional, regulatory and social‐ecological opportunities for these tools to  optimize their deployment in real‐world settings.

The result will be an economically viable Coho Salmon aquaculture industry serving both domestic and export markets, bringing jobs and economic benefits to communities and  enhancing Canada’s role as a world leader in fisheries and aquaculture genomics. The results  of the project should also be transferable to other species of Pacific salmon as well as  salmonids from other regions of Canada.

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