Animal Welfare
Dr. Paul Hardy-Smith B.V.Sc. (Hons), MACVSc, GAICD, Grad.Dip. (Aquaculture)
Paul has been working as a full time fish veterinarian for over 12 years. He is one of the few vets in Australia who has both government and hard production experience in fish farming, as the following notes explain.
Paul graduated from University of Melbourne in 1987, helping meet costs through university by crayfish diving on the Great Barrier Reef. He initially worked in mixed practice in rural Victoria before travelling to Canada in 1991 to pursue an interest in fish farming, working as a site manager on a Pacific salmon farm. This confirmed Paul’s desire to be involved in this industry and on returning to Australia he completed the Graduate Diploma in Aquaculture program at Deakin University before joining the Tasmanian Department of Primary Industries in 1995 as the Aquaculture Veterinarian for the state. The scope of the position was wide and Paul was involved with many aspects of aquatic animal health - diagnostics, treatments, policy and regulation with regards to aquaculture, and also input at the National level in developing exotic disease strategy policy and import/export guidelines.
In addition, while working in this position Paul represented the State Government when he travelled to the headquarters of the World Organisation for Animal Health (OIE) in Paris. This trip was part of the Canadian salmon importation issue. He also represented the Tasmanian salmon industry at a subsequent visit on the same issue.
In 1999, Paul travelled back to Canada to join Heritage Salmon Limited as the Production Veterinarian for the Company. At that time the company produced approximately 15,000 tonnes of salmon per annum. Paul ran the health management section of the company gaining extensive knowledge in the management of major diseases of salmon in a production setting. He was responsible for biosecurity and health management of ten grow out sites, four hatcheries and a selective breeding broodstock facility. Paul also worked closely with the processing, product quality and marketing sections of the company.
Paul now works in Australia, Canada, the US and a number of Asian countries including Thailand, China and Malaysia as an aquaculture and aquatic animal health consultant for national and local governments, multinational companies and privately owned fish farming enterprises. He works with many species including shrimp (P. monodon and P. vannamei), sea bass (Barramundi -Lates calcarifer), rainbow trout (Oncorhynchus mykiss), Atlantic salmon (Salmo salar), groupers (Epinephelus species), yellowtail kingfish (Seriola lalandi), eels (Anguilla spp) and abalone (Haliotis species). He teaches widely in aquatic animal health, including to veterinary students at both Melbourne and Charles Sturt Universities. He is a member of the Australian College of Veterinary Scientists in the Aquatic Animal Health Chapter and is the Managing Director of Panaquatic® Health Solutions Pty Ltd (“Panaquatic”).
Over the past 12 months he has been involved with a number of significant health issues in Australian aquaculture, including the identification of a herpes like virus in Victorian abalone stocks and the development of effective vaccines for Streptococcus iniae in Barramundi. Paul’s company, Panaquatic, has been working with the Australian Government – Department of Agriculture, Fisheries and Forestry (DAFF) to facilitate the consideration across Australia of best practice guidelines and/or minimum standards for fish welfare in the key finfish sectors in Australia – aquaculture, wild capture fisheries, ornamentals and recreational.
This has been conducted under the Australian Animal Welfare Strategy (AAWS)
and will be the topic of Paul’s presentation.
Panaquatic® Health Solutions Pty Ltd (“Panaquatic”) was contracted by the Australian Government – Department of Agriculture, Fisheries and Forestry (DAFF) to facilitate and assist in bringing together the finfish sectors to consider the development of consistent welfare guidelines (Codes of Practice/minimum standards) across the four key sectors – aquaculture, commercial wild capture, ornamental and recreational. This is part of the Australian Animal Welfare Strategy (AAWS) which is a major initiative across both aquatic and terrestrial sectors in the area of animal welfare.
Under AAWS, an Aquatic Animal Working Group was formed which has representation from both government and industry. Last year, Panaquatic provided a Review of Current Welfare Arrangements for Finfish in Australia for the Working Group. This review identified variability both within and between the aquatic sectors with respect to finfish welfare issues. This review can be downloaded from the following site:
<http://www.daff.gov.au/animal-plant-health/welfare/aaws/stocktake>
A major part of this year’s project was the holding of workshops. Workshops for the ornamental, aquaculture and commercial wild capture workshops have now been held. All workshops went for 1 ½ days and were held in Melbourne. There was excellent representation of the key industries in each sector at the workshops and it allowed for lively debate and consideration of issues of fish welfare within the sector. Outcomes of these workshops will go back through the Aquatic Animal Working Group for consideration of additional funding and assistance.
There was no workshop for the recreational sector. Nationally, this sector is currently conducting a major review of its own National Code of Practice. This Code identifies a number of key issues related to welfare and hence this sector will run a similar process to the other sectors, for which it has acquired outside funding.