Work has been done to improve equipment at Matís in Ísafjörður. In the Westfjords, great emphasis is placed on aquaculture, especially cod farming in the sea, where Matís pursues a strong research and development team in good collaboration with companies in the area.
Matís aims to become a leader in the field of environmental research in connection with aquaculture, as it is necessary to monitor the impact on the environment caused by aquaculture. Equipment is currently being used at Matís in Ísafjörður to film underwater films.
It is known that farmed fish do not use all the feed given to them and they accumulate on the seabed and can cause pollution. Cod spawning is also known to occur in sea cages, so fertilized eggs are likely to be released into the environment, although negative genetic mixing has not yet been demonstrated. Preventing spawning in aquaculture pens would therefore be a very important step towards making farming an environmentally friendly industry with improved feed utilization, which means that less feed falls to the bottom under pens.
The equipment makes it possible to closely monitor the interaction, behavior of fish and the environment in Matís' aquaculture experiments in Álftafjörður. The images can be viewed on a computer from a distance. The equipment also opens up new possibilities such as monitoring side farms such as mussel farming in the vicinity of the fish farms.
The equipment was purchased in collaboration with the Marine Research Institute on the one hand and Álfsfell ehf on the other, which is a company in cod farming. Rannís provided funding for the purchase.
The picture shows Dr. Þorleif Ágústsson, project manager at Matís in Ísafjörður, with the underwater camera.