Full project title: Reestablishing Atlantic wolffish populations and restoring intact kelp forest ecosystems
Partners: Akvaplan-niva (project lead), Norwegian Institute for Water Research (NIVA)
Funding: Restorae and Trefadder/Vår Energi
Background and goals:
Long term kelp forest restauration requires a holistic approach and a whole-ecosystem perspective, from the foundation species to the top predators. Along the coast of northern Norway, past coastal fisheries removed predatory fish, including Atlantic wolffish, controlling sea urchin populations and thus triggered an ecosystem collapse during the 1970ties where kelp forests were grazed down and turned into barren ground. To this day, the Atlantic wolffish fish stocks has failed to recover, probably due to late sexual maturity (6–7 years) and limited connectivity between local populations.
Restorae and Trefadder/Vår Energi have allocated funding for the first steps allowing demonstrations of long-term kelp forest restoration in Northern Norway. The aim of the project is to produce 500 Atlantic wolffish juveniles from wild caught broodfish, available for pilot experiments, and controlled release into the wild. Applications of release permissions and fishery protection will be conducted as part of the provided funding. Further, the allocated funding covers the collection of tissue samples (muscle or fin-clip) from 50-100 individual Atlantic wolffish from 3-4 separate geographic areas/fjord along the coast of Troms and Finnmark to prepare for future analysis of the Atlantic wolffish genetic population structure (pending financing).
Akvaplan-niva and NIVA are responsible for defining the scientific work and interpreting the scientific results from the project, including any follow-up steps to be defined and sought financing for during/after the project period. Akvaplan-niva is responsible for the Atlantic wolffish throughout the project period, and their destiny after the end of the project.
Steering committe: Brian Tsuyoshi Takeda (Restorae), Øyvind Stråbø (Trefadder), Erling Natvig (Vår Energi), Camilla With Fagerli (NIVA) and Marianne Frantzen (Akvaplan-niva).