Images from Lethbridge College

By Connor Gunn

Lethbridge College project researching sturgeon diseases

Aug 21, 2021 | 6:00 AM

LETHBRIDGE, AB – Led by John Derksen, chair of the Aquaculture Centre of Excellence (ACE), and Lethbridge College researcher Kristine Wilson, an aquatics research project aims to develop a greater understanding of viruses affecting sturgeon in the South Saskatchewan River basin.

The college says sturgeon populations in the South Saskatchewan River are designated as endangered by the Committee on the Status of Endangered Wildlife in Canada.

“They are currently being considered for listing under the Species at Risk Act and are listed as Threatened under the Alberta Wildlife Act.

Sturgeon management and recovery plans have identified herpes viruses as a threat to conservation efforts, but the risk is difficult to assess given the lack of information on the types of viruses and their presence in wild populations,” the release reads.

Derksen says the goal “is to pave the way for using sturgeon in commercial aquaponics,” which he says fish, plants, and beneficial microorganisms are grown together in an integrated system.

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“In commercial aquaponics, 80 per cent of your revenue is going to come from the produce you grow, and the fish are secondary,” he explains.

“Because sturgeon are slow growing and don’t mature for 15 to 20 years, they are a good long-term investment, because you don’t have to separate the sizes when they get big and you don’t have to worry about finding a market for the fish.”

He adds that the ACE team is interested in bringing in farmed sturgeon from British Columbia, but the research project needs to determine that the farmed fish won’t carry any diseases that wild domestic fish don’t already have.

The college says the project is expected to continue through to the end of August with the goal of catching and sampling 180 sturgeon from areas across southern Alberta.