To say that Dr. Daryl Whelan, the Provincial Aquaculture Veterinarian and the Director of Aquatic Animal Health Division with the provincial Department of Fisheries and Aquaculture, was excited about the opening of the new health centre in St. Alban’s would be an understatement.
Dr. Whelan could hardly contain his excitement as he led Premier Kathy Dunderdale, Fisheries Minister Clyde Jackman, MHA Tracey Perry and other dignitaries on a tour of the facility prior to the official opening ceremony on July 14.
He was one of the main advocates for the centre, which will be the province’s main laboratory in the work with the health, and development of aquaculture.
The St. Alban’s centre will be the third in the province’s fish health labs and will be by far its most modern and will contain the best, most ultra-modern equipment available in the world. The other two labs are located in St. John’s and Grand Falls-Windsor.
Dr. Whelan said, “Our main role at the health centre will be to ensure that we have a sustainable industry that can grow well into the future. If there’s a health issue on a grow-out site such as a fungus or a virus problem, we will want to address it very quickly with our applied research and come up with a solution to the issue.
“The solution may lead to management strategy changes that will prevent the problem from occurring again. Basically, it’s all about keeping the fish as healthy as possible as they perform better when they’re disease free, stress free, when they have good stocking density, are well fed and looked after.”
The technical personnel at the St. Alban’s centre are all specialized people who will work with Dr. Whelan in the field of aquatic animal health. Another division at the centre, led by Elizabeth Barlow, will look after the further development of aquaculture in the area.
Dr. Whelan and his specialized staff will have the best equipment in the world to help them with their important work.
He said. “I wanted to find the most ultra-modern equipment available for this facility as I wanted to entice specialists to work and live in this region.
“So, I needed the most modern and most labour efficient equipment at the same time.”
The Centre for Aquatic Health and Development is like something out of a science fiction novel and will be the envy of all fish health veterinarians in the world.
“There’s a lot of automation in this building. Everything here is keyed through an internet system which goes through a building management system which gets back to our blackberries and laptops, so we can control all the parameters in the building very quickly.
“I will know if there’s a diagnostic issue at any point in time as the equipment will inform me of that regardless of where I may be working in the province. I will be able to control that issue from my laptop and change the parameters to correct things.
“Our large laboratory information management system (LIMS) tells us all about our lab diagnostics. It’s what makes sure we have a good quality assurance and quality control.
“With our quality assurance and quality control we can certify our lab and document all our work at the site.
“I will know the status of every single sample we take from a farm site all the way through to the end result. Everything is automated and scanned so that at every point in time we will know where every sample is, where it stands there which means that we get our diagnostics back that much more accurately and efficiently.”
Dr. Whelan said that the centre in St. Alban’s mean that his staff can do much more work in the province than before.
‘Of all the work we did, about 40 to 47 per cent would have to be shipped out to Scotland, France, Norway and the Atlantic Veterinary College in Charlottetown, Prince Edward Island.
“We will now be able to do 93 per cent of all of our required work in-house at St. Alban’s. We’ll send out the other seven percent not because we will need to, but we have to send out so many samples on a random basis to earn our accreditation. Other labs from around the world will send samples to us for ring testing to ensure their work is equivalent to ours.
We will also be working toward earning our International Standards Organization status within a year from July 15 and our Canadian Food Inspection Agency accreditation as well.
“This is a very sophisticated building and all the staff here will play a key role in the future growth of aquaculture in the Coast of Bays.”
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