Last but not least fish health seminar

Kate Casey Among Puerto Montt’s circle of salmon farming professionals, fish health is an untiring topic of conversation. Ten international specialists from Norway, Scotland and Canada were invited to participate as guest speakers in either of the fish health seminars hosted by Skretting Chile and SalmonChile last month. This month the company ADL Diagnostic Chile Ltd. served as host for another fish health seminar, this time focused on immunomodulation advancements in salmon production. The company invited Norwegian researchers Atle Larsen and Roy Dalmo to share their knowledge of the application of immunomodulation on fish species. According to an interview with Visión Acuícola, these researchers’ aim is to improve the immune response of farmed fish in order to increase production yield and reduce the negative impacts of aquaculture. Dr. Patricio Bustos, general manager of ADL Diagnostic Chile, a company specialized in providing diagnostic laboratory services and technical veterinary assistance for Chile’s salmon producers, had this to say about the general fish health situation in the salmon industry, “The greatest challenge facing Chile’s salmon farming industry is to work within a more specialized plan, one that includes a strong emphasis in training, and even more importantly, one that prioritizes investigation and organization. The biosecurity measures that must be implemented will work only as well as the coordination between players works.”