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Marine Environmental Legislation Expert Group Minutes: Marine Licensing; Shellfish Waters Directive; Scottish Aquaculture and Fisheries Bill; Common Fisheries Policy; Reforming Wildlife Management Legislation ; MarineStrategy Framework Directive; Marine Protected Areas

The use of image processing and analysis software in aquaculture can reduce time and manpower in the execution of certain repetitive and error-prone tasks such as counting of live feed organisms in marine fish hatcheries. Accordingly, the Institute of Aquaculture in collaboration with Machrihanish Marine Farm Ltd. has developed a software algorithm and image capture system which identifies, discriminates and counts rotifers under laboratory conditions. Rotifers are produced and used as live feeds in marine fish hatcheries and a cost effective automated system has potential for manual use in commercial hatcheries where manual counting is time consuming, tedious and often inaccurate. The objective of this project was to develop a robust, efficient and affordable image acquisition and analysis system suitable for use under practical conditions in the hatchery. The project involved procurement and optimisation of appropriate equipment and analytical image analysis system for on-farm use, and on-farm testing to develop and improve protocols and analytical algorithms to permit efficient use of the system under hatchery conditions.

Marine Environmental Legislation Expert Group Minutes: Marine Licensing; Shellfish Waters Directive; Common Fisheries Policy Reform; Marine Strategy Framework Directive; Marine Protected Areas Scotland, England and Wales; European Marine Sites Scotland and England; Marine Planning EU and UK formal position

In the first phase of the project, high pressure processing studies were carried out on 11 species of fish and shellfish in order to determine whether there were any potential processing benefits for the UK seafood processing industry. The seafood products tested were nephrops, mussels, oysters, crab, cold water prawns, lobster, warm water prawns, unsmoked salmon, squid, mackerel and cod. The results from the first phase of the project can be found in report reference FMT/REP/95900/1. Five products were short-listed for further work; these were nephrops, warm water prawns, crab, salmon and cod. Trials on crab, warm water prawns and nephrops focused on large scale picking/peeling trials to determine whether product yield benefits identified in phase 1 were transferrable to larger scale processing. Trials on salmon and cod focused on pasteurisation and shelf-life evaluation.

A report which analyses the economic contribution and value of the major aquaculture sub-sectors, and the most important farmed species in England, Wales and Northern Ireland.

This Marine Scotland Science Report is a series of reports that publish the results of research and monitoring carried out by Marine Scotland Science. These reports are not subject to formal external peer-review.

The objectives of the current project were to establish a hake broodstock and to source eggs and larvae and these would be used for scientific studies of larval development and biology.

The report details experiments in 2004 and 2005 that were funded by NERC and Seafish towards a Phd project carried out at the SAMS marine laboratory in Ardtoe. The morphological development of the head in cod larvae and the effect of prey size on the development were studied as well as aggression in cod juveniles and the effects of prey density on aggression. Some of the key results from these experiments are summarized in this report. Each section of the report eventually formed a chapter of the final thesis (through the University of Glasgow).

Following on from a previous study to develop test criteria for defining 'free of flesh' shell, further trials have been undertaken to see whether a leach based test methodology could be used as an alternative. Additional tests were carried out on a range of different processes to identify which may be commercially feasible for producing free of flesh shell. The results of the trials showed that the leach based testing methodology was not reliable as a method. Crushing shell is an important stage in difficult to clean products such as crab. A commercial hybrid shell cleaning system could be suitable for commercial use but further engineering is required to develop a suitable system and the commercial viability will be dependant on any value of the clean shell by-products.