By Dave Bushek & Ryan Carnegie
Growers and hatchery managers know the challenges of getting seed, and how complicated and costly this can get with state regulations, which usually require individual batch testing to provide assurance of biosecurity, freedom from pathogens or diseases, for interstate transfers. Batch testing is laborious, time consuming and expensive and does not stop animals from acquiring pathogens while testing is being performed. Batch testing, on its own, is not informative with regards to the history of biosecurity of a hatchery or measures to ensure or validate biosecurity protocols.
To both improve biosecurity of shellfish seed transfers and reduce unnecessary hurdles to the shellfish aquaculture industry, we created the Regional Shellfish Seed Biosecurity Program (RSSBP, https://rssbp.org/) as a collaboration among members of the shellfish aquaculture industry, shellfish scientists and pathologists, state regulators, and extension professionals. The program mitigates disease risk associated with interstate shellfish seed transfers by applying the best available science in shellfish pathology, aquaculture production, biosecurity, and disease ecology. The RSSBP has four core components:
- An Advisory Council representing the shellfish aquaculture industry, state regulators, shellfish researchers and extension personnel providing the best available science;
- A Pathology Working Group attempting to harmonize diagnostic methods and ensure competence at the various labs providing these services;
- A geographical disease database, compiling shellfish pathology data for the Atlantic and Gulf coasts of the U.S, displayed in an informative way for all members of the sector; and
- A set of biosecurity-specific best practices for shellfish hatcheries, including an audit system to verify compliance for those willing to participate, ultimately reducing the number of requirements for batch certification.
The program is voluntary and does not guarantee that all states or hatcheries will participate in the program. Hatcheries compliant with the RSSBP will be able to ship product into participating states via a streamlined permitting process, which obviates the need for shipment-by-shipment health evaluations. The RSSBP is designed to be expanded and adapted to meet the various needs of other coasts and regions. You can learn more about this program here or contact us here.
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