Education
Fish health education must be available in a formal and continuing way. Participation of higher, and continuing education systems in the State must be utilized in order to effectively train scientific and technical staff to support a healthy and productive industry.
The primary objective of a fish health education program is to provide quality disease diagnostic services to all government, public, and private aquaculture facilities within the State.
Currently, the main center for fish disease diagnostic services is the MDA Aquatic Animal Health Center in College Park. This laboratory deals primarily with diseases of finfish that occur in the wild or in capture populations but the lab also is (and has been) involved in monitoring the safety of some seafood products (crabs) and in some collaborative work on shellfish diseases with the DNR group at Sarbanes Cooperative Oxford Laboratory. The Aquatic Pathobiology Center at the University of Maryland School of Medicine in Baltimore has long been involved in diagnosing diseases of aquatic animals, mainly by histopathological methods including electron microscopy. They recently have become involved in computer-based applications relevant to fish and fish health.
It is recommended that the College Park laboratory remain as the main diagnostic control center because of the available expertise and the presence of the necessary equipment and facilities. A disadvantage of the College Park lab is its distance from most fish culture facilities in the State which complicates the delivery of the necessary live fish specimens to this central diagnostic laboratory in College Park.
One way to address this problem is to train personnel at the 5 MDA diagnostic laboratories that are strategically located throughout the State in the proper methods of sample collection and handling. This training would be provided at the College Park lab. This would greatly facilitate delivery of samples to a diagnostic lab for the farmer. Since the State=s labs are already involved in animal disease diagnosis, they could identify a number of the bacterial fish pathogens at that level and send only the isolates that were difficult to identify to College Park. Any samples requiring virus workup will continue to be sent to College Park as it would be economically prohibitive cost-wise to duplicate this capability at each lab.
Maryland Department of Agriculture field veterinarians and veterinary practitioners could be provided Acustom-made@ training suited to their backgrounds and their most likely clientele. The College Park campus of the Virginia-Maryland Regional College of Veterinary Medicine should cooperate with the Aquatic Animal Health Laboratory in providing such training.
An expanding aquaculture industry will require trained personnel. However, there are few opportunities in Maryland to receive formal education in aquaculture today. Formal graduate degrees are offered in the Biological and Resource Engineering Department and the Marine Environmental and Estuarine Studies program and Aquatic Toxicology program. No specific graduate or undergraduate degrees in aquaculture are offered. Undergraduate and master degrees in Fisheries Science can be earned at Frostburg.
A University-wide aquaculture program at the undergraduate level is not recommended at this time. However, as the industry prospers and the demand for personnel increases, such a program may be justified. It is currently possible for a student to specialize in aquaculture through one of the existing or planned marine science programs within the University of Maryland.
There is need for hands-on, industry-oriented training. Consideration should be given to establishing a two-year associate degree program in aquaculture that combines Ahands-on@ training and academic instruction. Such a program would insure a competent work/managerial force for the aquaculture industry. These associate degrees could be offered through the existing Institute of Applied Agriculture within the University of Maryland or Community Colleges.
The transfer of appropriate technology to current and potential aquaculturists will be a critical component of any effort to establish the aquaculture industry in Maryland. There must be a support structure within the State to identify grower and processor problems and provide the research linkage for innovations and improvements essential to keep Maryland aquaculturists competitive.
Cooperative Extension could better serve as a critical link between the industry and relevant research . Extensive resources in Maryland are being devoted to significant aquaculture research and related aquatic animal health and food safety issues. Improved access to such technologies are strongly encouraged. These technologies are often best transferred through the extension system.
Short courses of one to several days duration covering specialized aspects of aquaculture will also be in demand. Such courses (e.g. health maintenance and disease control, etc.) can best be offered to the public through The University of Maryland=s extension program at sites appropriate for the respective audience. Sarbanes Cooperative Oxford Laboratory offers 1-day sampling workshops as a joint effort with Aquatic Animal Health Laboratory and the Aquatic Pathobiology Center.
Research
The fish health research program must be effective and continuous. The primary objective of the program is the eradication and control of disease in the aquaculture industry in the State of Maryland and its neighboring States.
The research program must have a data collection component which provides a disease surveillance data base with standardized, timely and accessible reports based on epidemiological principles relevant to viral, bacterial and/or parasitic diseases.
The establishment of a cooperative research network among the federal, state, and private sectors is critical to the eradication and control of disease in the aquaculture industry in the State of Maryland
Research efforts are needed to provide the necessary bases for (a) improving existing diagnostic techniques, (b) understanding the mechanisms of virulence of major pathogens so that control strategies can be devised, (c) developing vaccines and immunomodulators as preventative measures, and (d) the pharmacological studies needed for the approval to use therapeutants for disease control. These efforts are supported by a variety of federal and private funding sources and are nationwide in scope. Minor projects that may be considered include: (a) testing of pathogens newly isolated from wild or cultivated fish in Maryland for their effects on the major finfish grown in the State, i.e. controlled transmission studies (b) establishment of a small quarantine facility where fish shipped into Maryland could be held while undergoing checks for pathogens. The State fish health program should develop detection systems to help Maryland producers avoid sending their products to the seafood`processor with biological hazards such as harmful bacteria, viruses or parasites.
