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• ‘Devastating’ decline in Bedeque Bay oysters has fishers worried with season set to start

According to the P.E.I. Shellfish Association, 72 million oysters were sold on P.E.I. in 2023. (Aaron Adetuyi/CBC)

“There is a lot more infrastructure, a lot more labour that is required to produce an MSX-resistant seed,” Desbarats said.”If we could get some recognition of that and support to help us achieve that MSX-resistant seed, to get it out to the industry, that would be very helpful.”

According to the P.E.I. Shellfish Association, 72 million oysters were sold on P.E.I. in 2023.

‘Wait-and-see’ approach

The Bideford breeding program has been attracting attention, including from scientists in Atlantic Canada who study oysters.

The P.E.I. Shellfish Association has an enhancement program that grows oysters to be released back into the wild to replenish the stocks. (Aaron Adetuyi/CBC)

Eric Ignatz, a post-doctoral fellow in the marine affairs program at Dalhousie University in Halifax, said if the Bideford hatchery can prove the seed is MSX-resistant, that would be a first in the country.

But that can be tricky, he said, because there is so little known about the parasite and how it’s spread, especially in Canada.

Ignatz will be doing research on MSX this summer in Cape Breton and on Prince Edward Island.

“I would view the field-work components as kind of a critical first step to identify oysters in natural beds or on farms that would have been exposed to MSX over the past year, breeding those oysters that you at least suspect are resistant or tolerant,” he said.

“It’s hard to tell whether oysters that you’re spawning this year are going to be resistant or tolerant to MSX.”

The association is also taking some action of its own. It’s had an enhancement program that grows oysters to be released back in the wild to replenish the stocks for years now.

Staff are also adding a nursery, and are hoping to buy some of the seed from the Bideford hatchery to study how to grow it.

Guy Perry, a geneticist and the Bideford hatchery’s manager, says he and his staff are doing ‘the absolute best we can as fast as we can’ to combat MSX. (Aaron Adetuyi/CBC)

Perry is hoping the Bideford program will be successful.

“It’s a fair degree of pressure, it’s a deep sense of responsibility to the community,” he said.

“There’s a lot of people that are very, very afraid right now. And I hate to see that. I really do. We’re doing the absolute best we can, as fast as we can to deal with the problem.”

The hatchery has buyers for about half of the 25 million seed it’s produced this year, and the rest will be sold on a first-come, first-served basis.

Source: CBC News. Original article available here.