Research 2009 - 2011
Fishing for Answers
Scott Forbes, Ph.D.
Professor, Biology
Manitoba, is home to a substantial fishing industry, largely centred on Lake Winnipeg, the 10th largest freshwater lake in the world, Lakes Winnipegosis, and Manitoba. Fish are abundant, yet the fishery is in trouble, due in part to the rising costs of transport. Dr. Scott Forbes is intent upon building new sustainable fisheries that use products locally and create employment opportunities for rural and northern Manitobans.
The common carp is a noxious and invasive species, now extraordinarily abundant in Manitoba waters. While still unmeasured, it would not surprise Dr. Forbes if the carp biomass in the lakes exceeded that of all other fish combined. Carp are currently harvested but the consumer market is limited. The potential for developing alternative products is now the focus of his research, with a team that includes colleagues Dr. Murray Wiegand and Dr. Ric Moodie.
Dr. Forbes proposes that micro-processing facilities could be established next to existing fish packing stations around Manitoba at a low cost. These would produce new endproducts from carp and would be zero waste generating: fish oils for use as biofuels and nutraceuticals, flesh for food and organic fertilizers for local farms, and roe for export. The remaining components can be processed for aqua foods, helping to address a world shortage of feeding materials. Even more motivating, these small-scale integrated facilities would offer maximum opportunities to employ local residents. By using the products in the communities, related transport costs are also substantially reduced.
Dr. Forbes and his colleagues have begun to discuss these ideas with some communities on Lake Manitoba and hope to design a fishery that can be certified as sustainable.
Although currently immersed in these studies of fish, Dr. Forbes did his doctoral work on ospreys nesting in tall trees, through which he gained a healthy respect for gravity. His long-term research is focused much closer to terra firma, in the area of behavioural ecology, specifically in selfishness and cooperation in bird families. He is the author of A Natural History of Families, stemming from that work.