Grieg Seafood BC showed the Mirror around a new barge at its Noo-la fish farm in Clio Channel during an Oct. 26 tour. The barge – which includes accommodations for workers and various industrial aquaculture facilities – is the second built by the company in as many years.

“We’ve just built two $2 million feed barges,” said Rocky Boschman, managing director of Grieg Seafood BC, which is part of the Norwegian multinational Grieg Group. “We do that because we believe there’s a place for us here on a long term.”

The barge includes a remote feeding system with underwater video cameras that allow technicians to observe fish behavior and adjust the flow of food accordingly.

“Fish, when they’re not hungry, they tend to school,” Boschman said, pointing to a screen that showed hundreds of fish moving in a chaotic pattern. “Those fish are all hunting.”

Environmental monitoring manager Bogdan Vornicu also noted that microscopes on the Noo-la barge are connected to the Internet, so that biologists can examine samples of materials such as plankton remotely.

The company is trying to position itself as a leader in “precision farming,” with instruments tracking oxygen levels in the water and other data, said Boschman. The goal is to predict ocean dynamics.

Source: Campbell River Mirror // Original Article