"Assessing the causes and developing measures to prevent the escape of fish from sea-cage aquaculture" - Prevent Escape
Funding Year: 2008
Funding Scheme: Small-to-medium scale collaborative project
Project Duration: 36 months
Total Project Value: €3.86m
EU Grant-Aid: €2.97m
Grant-Aid to Ireland: €203,798
Lead Partner: SINTEF (Norway)
Irish Partner(s):
Marine Institute, (ACMS)
Project Summary
The Prevent Escape project will conduct and integrate biological and technological research on a pan-European scale to improve recommendations and guidelines for aquaculture technologies and operations strategies that reduce escape events.
Through research focused on sea-cages and their immediate surrounds, the project will assess technical and operational causes of escape incidents, assess the extent of escape of reproductive gametes of fish, determine the inherent behaviours that pre-dispose certain species of fish towards escape and document the dispersal of escapees to develop and test recapture strategies. Practical measures to prevent escape will be determined which, if successful, will reduce economic loss and diminish genetic and ecological impacts.