Since the fishing industry as a whole is facing increased challenges and financial hardship, many are looking at marine aquaculture, also known as mariculture, as an alternative to commercial fishing. The Alaska Fisheries Science Center Kodiak Lab is currently conducting research that could support oyster farming.
Alix LaFerriere, who has a Ph.D. in marine biology, is a research ecologist at the lab.
The lab is studying hundreds of oysters in a 130-gallon water tank, sitting in trays that look like black bread baskets. Some oysters are as tiny as a grain of sand, others look like clumps of oatmeal about an inch in size.
The Kodiak Lab currently has oysters from Kodiak Ocean Bounty that are being used in feeding trials and small oyster seed from the U.S. Department of Agriculture lab in Newport, Oregon.
Prior to 2023, LaFerriere said federal facilities were not allowed to hold oysters within their labs.
The Kodiak Lab still focuses on commercial crab species, but a small fraction of its resources are now dedicated to oyster research and mariculture. LaFerriere estimates roughly 95% of the lab's operations are focused on commercial crab species and 5% on oysters.
“So we don’t do any food science research at the Alaska Fishery Science Center," she said. "We’re mainly looking at how do seaweed and shellfish farms, how do oyster farms, affect the environment?”
Similar to how the lab’s research supports the commercial crab industry, this research on oysters aims to support the mariculture industry in Alaska.
Last year LaFerriere bought about 5,000 live oysters from a local farm on the island, called Kodiak Ocean Bounty. 1,500 of those were put in Kodiak’s natural environment at two separate sites, to monitor for paralytic shellfish poisoning (PSP). Roughly 10 oysters will be collected and sampled every week for the next two years to monitor PSP levels in their tissues, in collaboration with Alaska Sea Grant.
Various shellfish around Kodiak this summer have had high concentrations of the toxins that cause PSP, which are produced by Harmful Algal Blooms. This is concerning not only for subsistence shellfish harvesters, but LaFerriere said, to oyster farmers as well.
"And one of the cool projects we’re doing here in Kodiak is, our growers, both Alf Prior and Nick Mangini; we were talking about what is important to them. And a really important question for the industry is: what are the levels of paralytic shellfish poisoning in the environment, in Kodiak town?”
There are currently three mariculture farms on Kodiak Island. All three owners at least partially fish for salmon, including Erik O’Brien who owns Kodiak Ocean Bounty on the west side of the island in Larsen Bay. The other two are Alaska Ocean Farms owned by Alf Prior and Lexa Meyer and Kodiak Sustainable Kelp owned by Nick Mangini.
“I grew up between Kodiak and Larsen Bay in a fishing family, and I wanted to diversify, and ended up starting a kelp farm in 2016, which was the first in Alaska," O'Brien of Kodiak Ocean Bounty said.
O’Brien said his kelp farm went under due to market challenges, but then he switched into oyster farming in 2018. He’s been growing millions of oysters every year, starting with seeds that he purchases from hatcheries outside of the state. Pacific oysters are non-native to Alaska, and there are no oyster hatcheries in Alaska, although that could change in the near future.
O’Brien’s farm is the westernmost site that grows oysters in the country. He said this presents both benefits and challenges.
“The cold water grows the oysters slower, so they don’t grow as long. However, there’s extreme demand for my oysters in particular, the buyers really, really like them," O'Brien explained. "So they are a little smaller, but even while the shells are smaller, they say that the meat is meatier, fuller, richer, buttery.”
O’Brien sells the majority of his oysters to Kachemak Shellfish Growers Co-op in Homer, which targets the state’s tourist industry.
Although these three mariculturists have backgrounds in commercial fishing, there are some fishermen, like Theresa Peterson who aren’t interested in diversifying into mariculture. She said during a recent Kodiak Fisheries Work Group meeting on Oct. 23 that she feels too old to start that type of business and she has spoken with other fishermen who aren’t interested in farming oysters either.
On average, an oyster grower in Alaska will take a seed that is only a few millimeters in size and grow it to at least 20 millimeters, or roughly 1 inch, before it’s ready to go to market. That process can take three years or more depending on what conditions the oysters are grown in. Compare that to the Lower 48, where some oyster growers only need two years or less to grow their animals to the size needed to sell at market.
The research the Kodiak Lab is conducting could determine what factors and which gear types will allow the oyster to grow best and reduce the time it takes to get O’Brien’s and other farmers’ final product to market. LaFerriere with the Kodiak Lab said her team plans to test different gear like floating cages, flip farm systems, Floating Upweller Systems (FLUPSY), like a nursery, and more to see which works best around the island for growing oysters. She hypothesizes that the gear that works well in high-energy environments in France, where there’s lots of wave action especially in harbors, will work best in Kodiak.
O’Brien hopes that the research at the Kodiak Lab will also help him establish a small lab in Larsen Bay and grow his own algae.
“Which is a fascinating creature," he said of algae. "It produces most of our oxygen, and it supplies the low trophic level on the food chain, and it supplies every single one of the commercial species of fish that's important to all the marine animals; fish and animals that are important to Kodiak and all coastal communities. It starts with algae.”
O'Brien said his plans to become a multispecies grower and have algae help feed his oysters at his farm in Larsen Bay could potentially happen before the end of this year.
LaFerriere, with the Kodiak Lab, expects that by the fall of 2025 the research team will have data sets from two different oyster farm sites. These could help inform not only oyster farmers like O’Brien, but anyone considering the economic viability of mariculture on the island.
Meanwhile, Kodiak’s municipalities and community stakeholders continue to discuss turning the city’s Gibson Cove property into a mariculture facility. Melissa Schoenwether with the Kodiak Economic Development Corporation shared an update on a feasibility study during a Fisheries Work Group meeting on Oct. 23.
“We've got a lot of different community partners that we're going to be working together with to help craft what would be the best use for them, for kelp, as well as oyster production, and processing," Schoenwether told the work group. "The goal is to present to you all this study with about a 35% plan rendered for what it could look like for Gibson Cove.”
Schoenwether expects KEDC will present another update by the next Fisheries Work Group meeting, which has not been scheduled yet.
If the timing works out, there could be simultaneous mariculture research, mariculture farming, and mariculture processing all happening on Kodiak Island in the near future.
Editor's Note: A previous version of this article incorrectly stated the types of oysters being used at the Kodiak Lab, and that has since been corrected.
