Fiskaaling in International Book on Cleaner Fish Research

BOOK RELEASE: when it comes to knowledge on cleaner fish, Fiskaaling is fairly advanced in research on and experience with lumpfish, which are used to fight lice in sea farms. This is the reason for a British cleaner fish researcher having asked researchers at Fiskaaling to author a chapter for his book on cleaner fish in general, which is about Faroese research in lumpfish.

The British researcher Jim Treasurer has for many years worked with what is called ‘reinsifiskar’ in Faroese – or cleaner fish in English – which among other things are used for fighting lice in sea farms. Recently he has mostly worked with lumpfish, which are a species of cleaner fish also native to the Faroe Islands.

Treasurer, who does research with the University of Aberdeen, is the editor of a new book on cleaner fish and how they are used in the aquaculture industry. For this book Treasurer has invited researchers and experts in cleaner fish from different countries to write chapters on various matters related to aquaculture and the use of cleaner fish.

In light of this, he contacted Fiskaaling and asked researchers here to write a chapter for his book about cleaner fish on the Faroe Islands.

It was Ása Johannesen, researcher at Fiskaaling, who handled the request, and who has been responsible for the chapter, but as a matter of fact there are three authors, who have each written approximately equal amounts. In addition to Ása Johannesen, two other researchers, Kirstin Eliasen, Fiskaaling, and Regin Arge, Marine Harvest, have co-authored the chapter from the Faroe Islands.

The book includes procedures for breeding lumpfish and other cleaner fish, the biology of these species, how the fish can be used as cleaner fish, and subsequently a chapter from each of the countries that use cleaner fish.

In the chapter by the Faroese researchers there is information on what is being done here to breed lumpfish, what research is being conducted related to lumpfish, and how they fare in the sea.

The book includes researchers from a total of six countries, where aquaculture is an important industry. In addition to the Faroe Islands it has researchers from Norway, Iceland, Britain, Ireland, Canada, and Chile.

Jim Treasurer’s book titled ‘Cleaner Fish Biology and Aquaculture Applications’ came out in April.

If anyone wishes to know more on this they are welcome to contact Ása Johannesen, researcher at Fiskaaling, asajoh@fiskaaling.fo, tel. +298 774764.