The Department of Fisheries and Oceans has pulled the plug on an aquaculture project aimed at rebuilding B.C.'s threatened abalone stocks and creating much-needed jobs in the tiny community of Bamfield on the west coast of Vancouver Island.
Launched 10 years ago, the Bamfield Huu-ay-aht Community Abalone Project was envisioned as a self-sustaining shellfish hatchery that would finance its research and conservation by selling adult abalone to B.C. restaurants.
But the commercial side of the operation never came close to meeting the ministry's expectations – in large part due to federal laws restricting the sale of at-risk species – and last month, the DFO cut off all further funds for the project.
"While it was their decision to cease operations, it is true we did not have any additional funding to provide them," said Andrew Thomson, the ministry's director of aquaculture programs.
"They continued to require federal and provincial funds to continue the operation, and I think one has to recognize that isn't really a viable business model."
A partnership between the Huu-ay-aht First Nation, the Bamfield Marine Sciences Centre and the community of Bamfield, the project received about $1.6-million from the federal and provincial governments over its lifetime.
Another $400,000 came from research grants and a sizable community investment, including $100,000 from the Huu-ay-aht First Nation.
Led by John Richards, a biologist at the Bamfield Marine Sciences Centre, the operation had plenty of success cultivating abalone, which take about five years to mature.
But plans to sell the first crop hit a snag in 2004 when the federal government enacted its Species At Risk Act, officially listing abalone as threatened for the first time.
"There's a clause in there that says it's illegal to kill an abalone, so how are you supposed to eat one?" Mr. Richards said. "They could have made a distinction between cultured and wild abalone, but they didn't."
In 2005, the project received a "ministerial exemption" allowing the sale of abalone under strict conditions. "End users" had to sign permits, undergo inspections and return all the abalone shells to the hatchery to prove they weren't sold on the open market.
"The shells are the body part of an endangered species so they're as protected," Mr. Richards said. "The restaurants just got really concerned about the legalities of the program."
In the past five years, the project has sold just over 1,000 abalone at an average price of about $10 each, he said.
Huu-ay-aht band Chief Robert Dennis blamed government "red tape" for the hatchery's demise.
"The laws didn't prevent us from selling the abalone, but it sure made it difficult," he said. "We needed the DFO to make it less stringent so that buyers would be willing to buy the abalone, but that didn't happen."
Mr. Richards said the project has released about 4.8 million larvae into the waters of nearby Barclay Sound over the past decade, resulting in a healthy population increase that will take several years to measure.
"It's a difficult evaluation because they're tiny for the first few years. It takes a diver with a trained eye," he said.
Mr. Thomson said the DFO is working on a deal to buy the failed project's remaining stock, right down to the last larva.
"We still have an interest in ensuring those abalone don't reach the market illegally," he said.
Special to The Globe and Mail