Scientist chat

Interviewing Sten Siikavuopio, a senior scientist at Nofima, about just about everything regarding the king crabs and the sea urchins invading the Norwegian coast.

About the king crabs

The king crabs were introduced to the Barents Sea outside in the early 60s and were first discovered in 1976 in Norwegian waters. Today the stock has spread westwards all the way to Hammerfest. It is found further south and west that Hammerfest, but that is mostly singular individuals. In the area from Hammerfest and eastwards along the Kola Peninsula, the king crabs have entered as good as every fjord and are also going quite far north.

For a long time the catching of king crab was forbidden in the Barents Sea, but from 2002 the government lanced catching quotas. Today, the Norwegian state has decided use two different strategies in regarding the king crabs. They are doing destruction fishery south and west of Hammerfest to try to extinct the stock. On the eastern side of Hammerfest, on the other hand, they are executing commercial fishery and ustainable management of the stock. “As a scientist, this strategy of “yes please, both” is quite difficult to understand. How they are planning on stopping the crabs from crossing the invisible line, is beyond my understanding.” When the larvae are hatched, they are floating around in the water for about a month. This means that they can easily spread very far, and even follow boats to the southern coasts. And even though the king crabs likes it better in cold waters of about 4 degrees, they can survive in up to 20 degrees for shorter periods.

Can you breed the king crabs?

Nofima has been doing research on that since 1994, and we have found that it is very difficult to do breeding of kin crab in a profitable manner. That is because it takes too long to go from the starting product to the sellable, profitable product. After the crabs have reached 700 – 800 grams, they only change their shells once a year and following, the growth isn’t very big. Most producers want the crabs to be about 6 kilos when they sell them, and that takes from 7 to 10 years when breeding from larvae. But in the latest years, an aquaculture based on catching has started growing, and this has proved to be very fruitful. They catch the wild crabs and then keep them in captivity and feed them for 2 – 6 months until they are fat enough to be sold.

Can you catch the king crabs all year round?

Yes, you can, but the season is primarily in the autumn from October to January, after the crabs have eaten well during the summer. The autumn is the season for the commercial fishery. The worst time is in February – March when it is changing its shell. The new big thing in king crab fishery is that you can now catch both male and female crabs. This means that we can sell king crab roe which is a very luxurious product similar to Russian caviar. If we get an export of this roe up and running, we will have a good potential of great profitability.

The sea urchins

Yes, the sea urchins have a very special history. Did you know that there are over 400 species of them in the world, and that we harvest only 10 of these species? The little green one, droebachiensis, is the most popular one. This is also the type of sea urchin that we have the most of on the Norwegian coast.

How is the market for sea urchin now?

The top was reached in 1995 when we had the all time largest catching statistics of 125 000 tons sold in the world. But after 1995 the stocks have been overpopulated and are decreasing and diminishing in size. Most of the sea urchins are caught from growing wild, and exported alive. Much of the sea urchins go to France and Europe, but Japan is the absolute largest consumer. They eat 90 % of the world production of sea urchins! The French are eating the sea urchins raw, served directly on the plate, but in Japan they have lots of different producers and are refining the sea urchins in to over 40 different products. In Europe also you can find particular use of the sea urchins; in Malta they are making pasta sauce of them, and in other parts of the region, they make for instance dessert soufflé.

So can Norway join this market?

Yes, well we are in the both lucky an unfortunate position that our coast is over-populated of sea urchins. This is in fact an ecological disaster! A surface on the size of Senja, Norways biggest island, has been eaten down. Actually, it is my opinion that the Norwegian government should rather have given the 4 billion NOKs they are giving to the Amazon rainforest, to the kelp forests of our northern coast. The sea urchins have eaten 50 000 tons of harvestable bio mass that we could have eaten. The loss of the kelp also makes the fishes go away and the fjords are slowly dying if nothing is done.

How is the process of breeding sea urchins?

It is not very common to breed the urchins from larvae because it takes too long. The better way is to catch them from the wild and then breed them up to a suitable size – like with the king crabs. The sea urchins grow evidently smaller and have less roe in them when there are too many of them. The down side of producing sea urchins this way is that to catch them you have to dive down and pick them up. However, we are actually working on developing a miniature submarine to increase the efficiency of this catching process. In Norway there are only two companies that are breeding sea urchins from roe at the moment, but more and more producers based on catching. In Maine, USA and in Japan they put out several million sea urchins every year, and there this is a million dollar industry.

How are they transported? Isn’t there a limit of only 3 days after packing?

No, that is completely nonsense! They can very well be eaten up to 10 days after packing. You know, this is animals without a heart and brain, they can manage perfectly fine over a longer period of time. But I think that in a long term perspective, all export of sea urchin from Norway will be refined. Have you seen the commercial for Nora jam? The one with all the ladies making jam? Well, in Chile they are packing sea urchins like that. I went to a factory where there were 400 ladies packing! They have over 4 000 licences for catching sea urchins over there. In Norway it’s not even regulated yet. By the way, the king crabs can also be sent alive. They are for instance sending living crabs to Switzerland. And a company in Lakselv is going to send 12 tons of king crab to Moscow this year.

Are you working on any new form for breeding at the moment?

Well, you know that the king crab and the sea urchin are the most luxurious products, but we are now working on a breeding installation in Kirkenes, where they will breed char. This is a type of fish that needs to be bred in a closed land based plant. It is actually getting half of its financing from the Russians who have great interest in the fishing industry. They are a country of much resource when it comes to lakes and fresh water, but not on sea water. They have a great potential in developing breeding installations for fresh fish over there. Pinro and Veniro, the biggest companies in the Russian science industry, are working on many subjects. In Linehammeri (a closed sub-marine base near the Norwegian border) they are doing breeding of Norwegian salmon. Unfortunately, the possibilities of sea farming on the coast of the Kola Peninsula are very limited due to the many many military zones. In the White Sea, on the other hand, I know they have had successful experiences on net breeding in summertime.

Any last words?

Yes, you should check out the fishing tourism that is up and coming. It is a million dollar industry in Alaska. It is a kind of adventure tourism where they set out fish for guaranteeing catch and even provide a very own chef for the tourists to learn how to cook their fish! We are doing a project on this in Kirkenes as an offer for the tourist in the ice hotel. It will be very nice.

Potential for added value on the coast of Norway

Norway in the future…

Some day in the future, in not too long, the oil adventure of Norway will be history. The platforms will stop pumping up money to the welfare state, and Norway will need new industries. New industries that creates jobs and that sends money to the pocket…

It takes time to make new main sources of income up and running, and that is why Norway should start looking around for alternative activities already. A possible new source of income is sea farming, in many ways both a new and an old industry for the Norwegians. Old in the sense of it being an activity that kept big parts of the population alive through history. New in the sense that it for many years has for many years been considered a low status profession to do sea farming. It is not until the latest years, with the great export of salmon, that sea farming is again associated with money and status.

The politicians decided in the white paper St.meld.39 (1998-1999), Forskning ved et tidsskille, that the national focus of research should be on areas where Norway has distinct qualifications for success. There was appointed four such areas, whereas marine research was one of these areas. Within sea farming Norway has several obvious and natural advantages, and it is pointed out that this is one of the possibilities for the future [Norges muligheter for verdiskapning innen havbruk].

Norway has several natural advantages regarding sea farming. The coastal line of Norway is very long, and by the very fact of the economical zone being sat to 2000 km, this represents an enormous area in which one could do sea farming. The coast is suitably protected with many islands and fjords, and there is a large entry of nutrient-rich sea water. Large parts of the coast are not polluted, and there are especially favourable conditions northwards from Møre og Romsdal. The cold water keeps poisonous algae away, and it contributes to raise the quality of the sea food [Norges muligheter for verdiskapning innen havbruk].

There is such a high amount of money in sea farming that the salmon breeding in the areas around Hitra and Frøya now stands for almost 40 % of the added value of all of Trøndelag [Knut Sundet]. However, sea farming in Trøndelag also invites to many other possibilities besides salmon breeding. It has been said that a well worked out Norwegian aquaculture has an equally big potential in added value as the oil industry [Norges muligheter for verdiskapning innen havbruk].

It all comes down to seeing the potential that sea farming in Norway represents. Lee Chul-ho, better known as the noodle king Mr. Lee, has just announced that he wishes to start a king snail factory on the island of Frøya. According to him there is swarming with king snails along the coast of Trøndelag, and he wants to sell these to Japan, where the snails are a highly sought after delicacy [NRK, 31.03.05]. In Norway, the king snails have a low status, and as a consequence, its potential as an income has not been seen. The sea urchin has suffered under the same conditions, but there are now several enthusiasts that believes in the sea urchin as a sellable sea food product, and that has tried to make an industry out of it.

Åfjord municipality has tried to become the mussel municipality number one in Norway, the mainly blue mussels. In the early 90s they were really big in this kind of breeding, but due to tragic circumstances and a collapse in the mussel market, they had a major set back. They are now on the way back, heading for new altitudes. The breeding conditions in the area are optimal and this is an advantage the municipality should take advantage of.

It is important for the distinctive characteristics of Norway that the scattered population is kept, also along the coast.

For the outskirts such as Åfjord, it is of great significance that there are a sufficient amount of jobs, both to prevent people moving out, and to stand out as an attractive place to live that invites for people to move to. Jobs require a form of added value and for municipalities along the coast, different forms of sea farming is such a valuable possibilities.

Outskirts can experience success by creating a strong environment for added value. This will to a certain amount, lead the focus from urban areas to the relevant area. According to the white paper St.meld. nr.34 (2000-2001), Om distrikts- og regionalpolitikken, a successful environment for added value is characterized by three main factors;

• There are relatively many companies within certain industries inside limited geographical areas. This leads to a strong local competence.
• The companies are forming local networks and are collaborating on innovation, both horizontally and vertically in the value chain.
• There are contact and dialog with regional knowledge organisations.
  

If the three factors of success are used as a point of departure, we can see what Åfjord did wrong in the 90s and what they should do now. Early in the nineties there was given 23 licences to do mussel breeding, and all of these were divided on many small companies. As the interest spread out in the municipality, one started to demand that the companies delivered their mussels to the already established wrapping factory. This led to tendencies of collaboration and networks. There was however no contact with regional knowledge organisations [Knut Sundet].

There are great expectations of the niche production of rather luxurious sea food will be the future of the Norwegian aquaculture. There will always be variations in the market and it is important with a flexible production as for instance to be able to use the same factory for several kinds of sea food [Norges muligheter for verdiskapning innen havbruk]. In Åfjords case, it will be strategically smart to go for production and eventually refinement of multiple types of sea food. They have already tried the breeding of mussels, and there have earlier been attempts of diving for sea urchins for exporting to Japan. The local environments are already big in salmon breeding, and Åfjord should rather try to complement them than to compete against them. This they can do my producing several types of mussels, sea urchins, different snails and other types of sea food. To accomplish even more added value, they should further on try to refine some of these products [Strategi for blåskjellnæringen for sjømatklynge nord]. This will contribute to create interesting job possibilities.

It is said of the future that quality will be a key word. There will be more and more demands of documentation of high quality, and as a follow up on this there will probably come some rules of certification for sea food. An eco-label is such a certificate. The eco-labeled sea food means that the food is given a life-cycle assessment that says something about the environmental friendliness of the product from raw material to waste management. Marine Stewardship Council (MSC) is an independent eco-label that guaranties that the sea food is from a viable sea farm [WWF ”sjømat med god samvittighet”]. Eco-labelled sea food is as of today not to find in Norway, but there is a growing demand of this in Europe. Ac eco-label on the sea food would function as a quality stamp.

Translated article

source unknown

Sources:

Arbeidsgruppen for havbruk, Det Kongelige Norske Videnskabers Selskab og Norges Tekniske Vitenskapsakademi, Norges muligheter for verdiskapning innen havbruk, 1999

Dagbladet, http://www.dagbladet.no/pds/1999/03/30/161797.html

Knut Sundet, leder av Åfjord Næringsforening

NRK P3, nyhetssending 31.03.05

Stiftelsen Norsk Skjellforum, Strategi for blåskjellnæringen for sjømatklynge nord

St.meld. nr. 34 (2000-2001), Om distrikts- og regionalpolitikken

St.meld.39 (1998-1999), Forskning ved et tidsskille

WWF-Norge, Sjømat med god samvittighet En oppsummering av miljømerker og miljø-styringssystemer for fiskerier og havbruksprodukter, 2002

[http://www.dagbladet.no/pds/1999/03/30/161797.html