RESEARCH: Fiskaaling is part of a project, which has just received funding from a Norwegian foundation whose objective it is to develop a new method for detecting salmon lice in the sea.
Researchers continually work to find new and more effective methods in the effort to detect and fight the problem of salmon lice in sea farms.
Along with Norwegian and Scottish researchers Fiskaaling has received funding from the Norwegian foundation Fiskeri- og Havbruksnæringens forskningsfond (The Norwegian Seafood Research Fund) for the work in developing a new method of examination for detecting salmon lice in the sea. The method in question is the so-called fluorescence method, which makes it easier to distinguish salmon lice from other living organisms in the sea.
Fiskaaling has extensive experience with detecting salmon lice in the sea and is probably the only company offering such tests to the industry as a service.
The role of Fiskaaling in this new project will, among other things, be to collect samples on the Faroe Islands and to investigate the usefulness of this procedure.
A big challenge regarding detecting salmon lice in the sea is that it can be difficult to detect the amount of salmon lice due to their low numbers compared to other organisms in the sea. There is no method to distinguish salmon lice from other organisms when samples are collected.
It is very important in the fight against salmon lice that the aquaculture industry is given opportunities to have the situation under better control when it comes to the danger of salmon lice infection. And it is here that the development of the new method to detect salmon lice can be put to great use.
If you wish to learn more about this, please contact Gunnvør á Norði, head of department and researcher at Fiskaaling, mail: gunnvor@fiskaaling.fo, tel. +298 774735.
