Too soon to open oyster hatcheries to battle MSX, says P.E.I. fisheries minister

P.E.I. is balancing a lot of complex issues as it determines how to deal with the MSX parasite threatening the oyster fishery, says provincial Fisheries Minister Cory Deagle.

Multinuclear sphere X was first detected in Island waters in July. While the parasite is harmless to humans, it is deadly to oysters. In other areas struck by the disease, 80 to 90 per cent of oyster populations died off.

The first detections included just a few areas, but the Canadian Food Inspection Agency now believes MSX is widespread around the Island.

"It was certainly disappointing," Deagle told Island Morning host Laura Chapin of the recent evaluation, "but I guess to be honest it was probably expected."

The provincial Fisheries Department has been busy consulting with the P.E.I. Shellfish Association, the P.E.I. Aquaculture Alliance and local shellfish processors, he said. In addition, it has been seeking counsel from researchers and experts from areas where MSX is already endemic.

There are short, intermediate and long-term considerations, said Deagle. One thing that's clear is the issue is not going away.

"Right now our main concern is sampling and surveillance," he said.

Last week, P.E.I. Shellfish Association president Bob MacLeod told CBC News the province is moving too slowly.

MacLeod wants to see government moving on a strategy that has worked in other areas: Breeding MSX-resistant oysters.

The Eastern Seaboard experience

It was a strategy that was discovered in the northeastern U.S. almost by accident.

MSX came to Chesapeake Bay in 1959, and within a few years the oyster industry there was finished. So many of the shellfish had been killed by the parasite that the fishery was no longer viable. The industry turned to harvesting other species, such as clams.

But a decade later, the oyster population had rebounded. While close to 90 per cent of the population had been wiped out, those that survived passed on a genetic resistance to the parasite.

When MSX was found off the coast of Maine in 2002, the industry there lifted seed from Chesapeake Bay and began an aggressive breeding program in hatcheries. Quick action prevented a total collapse of the fishery. 

Quick action is what MacLeod wants here. Ideally, he said, the province would already be breaking ground on a half-dozen hatcheries.

'We can still fish oysters'

But the situation for P.E.I. — further removed from Chesapeake Bay than Maine is — is not so simple, said Deagle.

• LISTEN: Cory Deagle on Island Morning

There are other diseases present in Eastern Seaboard oysters that could be brought through seed to P.E.I. That leaves the option of working with local oysters, he said, and time is needed to determine which are MSX-resistant.

"In order to start this and have a hatchery you actually need a significant amount of mortality so you can take the oysters that survive and breed them," Deagle said.

"Right now we're not seeing that significant mortality. We might start to see that come the spring. We have to start planning now and see where we're at in the spring."

In the meantime, he said, it is important to note the province still has a thriving industry.

"We can still fish oysters, we can still grow oysters and we're still selling them," Deagle said.

"The demand is through the roof."

There were concerns in the summer that the presence of MSX might turn off buyers, but Deagle said those in the U.S. are accustomed to purchasing from areas where the parasite is well established, and it is not a concern to them.

Looking ahead, the department has provided funding for a consultant to design a licence buyback program. Any such program would be complicated, said Deagle.

The province currently has 600 to 700 licence holders but they are not all active, so it is not likely that all licences would be deemed to have the same value.

Any such program would be administered through the federal Department of Fisheries and Oceans, a provincial spokesperson clarified later in the day Tuesday. That's because fisheries are regulated and licences provided through the federal government, not provincial governments.