Proactive approach proved key to survival for the Australian Pacific oyster industry

Abstract

The global Pacific oyster aquaculture sector is plagued by a disease caused by the Ostreid herpesvirus, known in some countries as Pacific oyster mortality syndrome (POMS). POMS first arrived in Australasia in 2010 and caused massive mortalities, especially of young oysters, sometimes bringing about close to 100 percent mortality. At that time the Pacific oyster industries in Australia and New Zealand had already initiated genetic breeding programmes for commercially important growth-related traits. As POMS arrived in the region and started to spread throughout the two countries, these breeding programmes were able to pivot to breeding for POMS resistance, which turned out to be a highly heritable trait and responded very well to selection such that by 2018, selected oysters had average survival rates of around 80 percent during POMS outbreaks. This case study traces the development of oyster breeding programmes in Australia and New Zealand and describes how the industry sectors were able to respond quickly to the new and immediate threat of POMS and how the existence of ongoing breeding programmes, supported by both public and private sector, was critical to saving the industry from being completely decimated by POMS and how the breeding programmes enabled relatively rapid recovery from POMS-related losses. The study identifies the critical role of public–private partnership in the success of the breeding programmes and identifies some of the funding mechanisms that ensured ongoing success of these programmes.