Marine fish aquaculture, antibiotics and escaped fish: the elephant in the room

1. MARINE FINFISH AQUACULTURE,
ANTIBIOTICS AND ESCAPED FISH:
THE ELEPHANT IN THE ROOM.
J.M. Valero-Rodriguez
P. Sanchez-Jerez
K. Toledo-Guedes
Department of Marine Sciences
and Applied Biology, University
of Alicante.Alicante,Spain.

2. A change of pace…..
Sources: La vanguardia;the economist

3. Sources: https://www.dw.com/
https://thefishsite.com/

4. 1. Fisheries worldwide in a state of decline.
(Bourouni et al. 2012)
2. Aquaculture  62% growth by 2030.
(Reverter et al. 2020)
3. Overcrowding culture cages with
deleterious effects.
(Uglem et al. 2014; Sanchez-Jerez 2013)
4. Avoidance of illnesses antibiotics.
Introduction

5. Antibiotic use
-Aquaculture as reservoir of resistant
organisms.
(Zhao et al. 2020)
-Selection & increase in Antibiotic
Resistance Genes (ARG).
(Choi et al. 2020)
-Avoid these kind of consequence in
consumers.
-Concept of ‘withdrawal period’ –WP-.
Controlled process? Not always.

6. Climate change
influence
-Increase of significant wave heights,
during cyclonic episodes in 'hotspots’.
(Amarouche and Akpınar 2021)
-Increase in the intensity and
frequency.
(Harley et al. 2006)
-Possible interruption of WP.
-Escapes can be caught by artisanal
fisheries and sold to consumers.
(Arechavala et al. 2015)

7. Can we avoid medicated escapes
from reaching consumers?
We can minimise their incidence.

8. Objectives:
 Identify literature that links climate change, medicated fish and
escapes.
 Search for the most common management methods of fish
escapes that could reduce the number of medicated escapees.
 Identify current trends & status and suggest improvements.

9. >500 articles.
Literature search

10. • Preferable.
 Marine Spatial Planning.
 Vaccination.
 Improvement of technical
operations and equipment.
Prevention /Pre-Escape

11. • Properly selects possible facility
locations to avoid:
-Environmental damage through
the study of carring capacity.
-Competition for space.
-Facility integrity loss.
• Climate change challenges:
-Optimal range of growth disturbed.
-Illnesses appearance.
-Storm ‘hotspots’.
Prevention/ Pre-escape measures
MSP
Source:
https://journals.plos.org/plosone/article/figures?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0192582
/Marine Spatial Planning

12. -Environmental conditions change in a matter of
years.
-Addition of temperature anomaly datasets to
increase reliability of models.
-Better planning for Allocated Zones for
aquaculture (AZAs) = Environmental+socio-
economic factors.
Prevention/ Pre-escape measures
MSP
Source:https://www.int-
res.com/prepress/q00420.html
/Marine Spatial Planning
Lopez Mengual et al. 2021

13. • Vaccines & immunostimulation =
Sustainability
• Lengthy effect + wider range.
• In 20% of the producing countries.
Prevention/ Pre-escape measures
MSP Vaccination
Sources:
https://seafood.media/fis/techno/newtechno.
asp?l=e&id=35125&ndb=1

14. • Reasons for this disparity:
-Differences in immune systems.
-Logistics of distribution.
-Focus on treatment.
Increase knowledge regarding some
aspects of fish biology and their
interactions with vaccines.
-Case of salmon & sea lice-
(Semple and Dixon 2020)
Prevention/ Pre-escape measures
MSP Vaccination
Sources: https://thefishsite.com

15. Prevention/ Pre-escape measures
MSP Operations and equipment
Vaccination
• Technical operations in aquaculture vary depending on many factors.
I’m pretty sure this
is not legal, Karen.

16. • On the process of constant
improvement.
1-New alloys appear periodically (anti-
fouling, corrosion, etc.).
2-Improved operational procedures.
E.g.: Norwegian technical standard
(NS 9415).
Prevention/ Pre-escape measures
MSP Operations and equipment
Vaccination
>Ellaboration of an
standardised legislation.
 Regulative arrangements.
 Quality of materials.
 Assemblage techniques.

17. Mitigation /Post-Escape
• Recapture protocols.
• Legal framework.
• Risk assessment.
• Reports of fishery landings linked
to medicated escapees.
• Traceability.

18. • Generally ineffective for
medicated escapes.
• Exception: 24-48 hours after
the event.
• Timeframe seldom adequate.
Mitigation/ Post-escape measures
Recapture
Sources: BBC

19. • Trawling or fish traps  ineffective and non-
specific.
>Better organization of the recapture programs,
including:
-Higher rewards for reporting recaptures.
-Techniques with small by-catch incidence.
Mitigation/ Post-escape measures
Recapture
Sources:https://choice.npr.org/

20. • Public policies as a powerfult tool.
• Poorly designed.Problems of social
perception (impacts, use of space, lack
of transparency).
Legal framework
Mitigation/ Post-escape measures
Recapture

21. • E.g.: Protocol of escaped fish for the
Canary Islands .
• ‘In the event of an escape,
regardless of the cause that
originates it, - adverse
meteorological phenomena,
sabotage of the facilities or bad
practices-, this protocol will be
activated...’
(source:
http://www.gobiernodecanarias.org/boc/2018/05
8/005.html)
Legal framework
Mitigation/ Post-escape measures
Recapture

22. • This actions deter the expansion of the sector.
• Great amount of budget recapture efforts.
>Joint action between researchers, companies and policy makers at
the legal level  efficient and proportional response.
Legal framework
Mitigation/ Post-escape measures
Recapture

23. • Continuous monitoring + identification of
hazards + the evaluation of design and
operational phases.
• Basic tool for aquaculture sustainability that
could help in the case of medicated escapes.
Mitigation/ Post-escape measures
Recapture Risk assessment
Legal framework

24. • Help for R. Assessments.
• Highly detailed (numbers, time of escape).
• Problems: e.g.: ‘leakage’ events.
>Increase in number of structural monitoring routines by farm staff.
Mitigation/ Post-escape measures
Risk assessment Incident reports
Recapture Legal framework

25. • Aquaculture- escapes socio-
economic interaction.
• Intrusion of medicated escaped fish
into fishery landings.
F. Landings
Mitigation/ Post-escape measures
Risk assessment Incident reports
Recapture Legal framework

26. • Case of meagre tagging.
>Appropiate monitoring by
fish experts.
Assess economic, ecological
effects (WP interrupted?).
‘Salvaje’= Wild
F. Landings
Mitigation/ Post-escape measures
Risk assessment Incident reports
Recapture Legal framework

27. • Important for an adequate food safety level.
• For aquaculture:
 Improvement of technical standards.
 Sustainable activity.
 Effective mitigation plans (track down
medicated fish).
Mitigation/ Post-escape measures
Traceability
Sources: http://www.ictioterm.es/
F. Landings
Risk assessment Incident reports
Recapture Legal framework

28. Health alert > reports of possible
medicated escapees (Lack of action).
Technical complexity on the
implementation.
>Fast in situ traceability might rely on easily
identifiable traits such as morphology.
(Precautionary approach).
> Other techniques could be used for
environmental monitoring.
Volk et al. 1999
Mitigation/ Post-escape measures
Traceability
F. Landings
Risk assessment Incident reports
Recapture Legal framework

29. Final remarks
 Prevention over mitigation + Combination.
 In a climate change context: Special emphasis on vaccination efforts and MSP.
 Improvement of techniques needs the combined effort of researchers, policy
makers and producers to be effective and ensure a risk- free quality product.

30. Meet the Team

31. Project GLORiA
Mayorista
Minorista
Consumidor
Cambio climático
Acuicultura
Administración
ESCAPES
Pesca
Project
Framework

32. Initial results.

33. Question time
Departamento de Ciencias del Mar y Biología Aplicada
Universidad de Alicante
Carretera San Vicente del Raspeig s/n 03690
San Vicente del Raspeig, Alicante
965909840
Funding:
This work is part of project GLORiA. GLORiA is supported by the Biodiversity Foundation of the Spanish Ministry for the Ecological Transition
and Demographic Challenge, through the Pleamar Programme and co-financed by the European Maritime and Fisheries Fund (EMFF). It is
also part of the LIFE IP INTEMARES project "Integrated, innovative and participatory management of the Natura 2000 Network in the Spanish
marine environment”.
juama.valero@ua.es

34. Key References
• Alderman, D. J., and T. S. Hastings. 1998. 'Antibiotic use in aquaculture: development of antibiotic resistance - potential for consumer health risks',
International Journal of Food Science and Technology, 33: 139-55.
• Arechavala-Lopez, P., J. M. Valero-Rodriguez, J. Penalver-Garcia, D. Izquierdo-Gomez, and P. Sanchez-Jerez. 2015. 'Linking coastal aquaculture of
meagre Argyrosomus regius and Western Mediterranean coastal fisheries through escapes incidents', Fisheries Management and Ecology, 22: 317-25.
• Dempster, Tim, Pablo Arechavala-Lopez, Luke T. Barrett, Ian A. Fleming, Pablo Sanchez-Jerez, and Ingebrigt Uglem. 2018. 'Recapturing escaped fish
from marine aquaculture is largely unsuccessful: alternatives to reduce the number of escapees in the wild', Reviews in Aquaculture, 10: 153-67.
• Izquierdo-Gomez, D., P. Arechavala-Lopez, J. T. Bayle-Sempere, and P. Sanchez-Jerez. 2017. 'Assessing the influence of gilthead sea bream escapees in
landings of Mediterranean fisheries through a scale-based methodology', Fisheries Management and Ecology, 24: 62-72.
• López Mengual,I. , Sanchez-Jerez, P. , Ballester-Berman, J. D. . ‘Offshore aquaculture as climate change adaptation in coastal areas: an analysis of sea
surface temperature trends in the Western Mediterranean Sea’. AEI prepress abstract - DOI: https://doi.org/10.3354/aei00420.
• Jackson, Dave, Alan Drumm, Sarah McEvoy, Osten Jensen, Diego Mendiola, Gorka Gabina, Joseph A. Borg, Nafsika Papageorgiou, Ioannis Karakassis,
and Kenneth D. Black. 2015. 'A pan-European valuation of the extent, causes and cost of escape events from sea cage fish farming', Aquaculture, 436:
21-26.
• Jensen, O., T. Dempster, E. B. Thorstad, I. Uglem, and A. Fredheim. 2010. 'Escapes of fishes from Norwegian sea-cage aquaculture: causes,
consequences and prevention', Aquaculture Environment Interactions, 1: 71-83.
• Sanchez-Jerez, Pablo, Ioannis Karakassis, Fabio Massa, Davide Fezzardi, José Aguilar-Manjarrez, Doris Soto, Rosa Chapela, Pablo Ávila, José Carlos
Macías, and Paolo J. Tomassetti. 2016. 'Aquaculture’s struggle for space: the need for coastal spatial planning and the potential benefits of Allocated
Zones for Aquaculture (AZAs) to avoid conflict and promote sustainability', Aquaculture Environment Interactions 8: 41-54.
• Toledo-Guedes, K., P. Sanchez-Jerez, and A. Brito. 2014. 'Influence of a massive aquaculture escape event on artisanal fisheries', Fisheries
Management and Ecology,21:113-21.