Acronym NA
Category
Aquaculture
Title Identifisering og sporing av rømt oppdrettslaks med sjeldne grunnstoffer - Identification and tracing of escaped farmed salmon with rare elements Programme National Programme
Instrument (FP6)
Contact Type (FP7)
Strand (Interreg)
NA
Theme (FP7)
Activity Area (FP6)
Regional Area (Interreg)
Action (COST)
NA
Specific Programme (FP7)
NA
Funding source National Coordinator Magny Thomassen Coordinator email mangy.thomassen@umb.no
Coordinator institution
NMBU - Norwegian University of Life Sciences (Norway)
Institutions involved
STAMI - National Institute of Occupational Health (Norway) ,
NOFIMA - Norwegian Institute of Food, Fisheries and Aquaculture Research (Norway) ,
ETH Zurich - Swiss Federal Institute of Technology Zurich (Switzerland) ,
Start year 2011 End year 2014 Funding (€) € 884,119 Website https://www.fhf.no/prosjekter/prosjektbasen/900709/ Summary The main object of this project was to develop a method that, both easy and cheep, can distinguish farmed from wild salmon, and at the same time track the salmon back to the farm. Background levels of rare earth elements in shells in farmed smolts were tested and the usability of five different rare elements for use in feed in annual smolts was tested. The aim was to find out whether rare earth elements added to feed can be used to trace the salmon back to the facility the fish comes from. The technique is simple since it only requires scraping a few shells from the fish which can then be sent in for analysis. The feasibility study showed large natural variation in background value for 17 different elements analyzed on zero-year-old smolt from 6 different commercial facilities along the entire Norwegian coast. Feeding experiments where a known amount of 5 different elements were given in feed for a period of 2 weeks, showed significantly higher concentrations of these elements 2 to 4 months after the end of the experiment, compared to fish that were not fed on these elements. Ratios were calculated between elements that are naturally found in fish from fish farms and then differences in the background values of the rare soil elements were revealed. By using only environmental background values of 10 salmon per locality, certain differences were demonstrated both between geographically distant facilities and close facilities. It is possible to analyze for a total of 19 elements in one and the same analysis, which allows for several hundred different conditions (ratios). Such analyzes can be used as a unique "fingerprint", specifically for the individual facilities.
Keywords
Tagging;
Environmental impact;
Fish;
Salmon;
Escapes;
Marine Region
41
Norwegian Sea (27.IIa)
42
Barents Sea (27.I)
13
Northern North Sea (27.IVa)
3
Marine Region Map
