Talking crustaceans over coffee dates
Nova Scotia food scientist casting a wide net in search of alternative lobster bait
HALIFAX— Zhuliang Tan grins broadly as he explains why he wants to meet with lobster fishermen from across Nova Scotia for conversations over coffee for science.
The Dartmouth-based food research scientist was laid off during his company’s restructuring this past August, something he now embraces as a blessing in disguise.
With numerous published peer-reviewed articles and years of industry experience, Tan is creating his own business and pursuing a long-held dream of making a more sustainable and innovative lobster bait using seafood industry byproducts that would otherwise be waste.
“I know as a food scientist that we can use, for example, the fish skin, that we can extract some very good collagen out of it,” Tan said over a cup of coffee in a North End Halifax pastry shop.
“I know from the farmed fish industry, from the plant, they generate huge amounts, millions of pounds of byproducts. Heads, brains, tail, guts, skin, whatever. We need to find a way to utilize all that kind of stuff.”
Tan believes the best way to get cracking on his dream of landing a successful alternative lobster bait is by shelling out for coffee with fishermen and gaining insight into their practices and their needs.
“I don’t want to blindly go to someone’s home and say, ‘Oh, hello. You’re a lobster fisherman, I would like to talk with you,’ ” Tan chuckled.
“So I recently started reaching out online to find fishermen who want to take me up on my offer. I’m very passionate about two things. The first is food from land and food from the sea, and the second thing I’m passionate about is sustainability.”
Tan said his idea for a cost-effective alternative lobster bait would make use of waste materials while also helping replenish the dwindling populations of forage fish species like herring and mackerel that are frequently used as lobster bait in Nova Scotia.
These small forage fish provide food for species like sharks, whales, tuna, halibut and cod. In addition, they’re an important source of bait for many Atlantic Canadian fisheries, including both the lobster and crab fisheries.
The Ecology Action Centre says on its website that both herring and mackerel have experienced “significant declines” due to fishing activity, with mackerel in particular having been assessed by the Department of Fisheries and Oceans as being “in critical condition, with overfishing still occurring.”
“Both species are also the target of a large, unregulated and unmonitored bait or recreational fishery, which could account for significant quantities of fish being removed from the ecosystem,” it says, adding that these species are also subject to natural “fluctuations in abundance” due to climate variability.
Even if there weren’t any issues with these forage species, Tan said we should be significantly reducing how much we take from our oceans.
Tan began actively following Atlantic Canadian seafood industry trends in 2006 when he arrived in Canada. He came from south central China to pursue a doctoral degree in food science from Newfoundland’s Memorial University, then moved to Nova Scotia eight years ago.
As he pursued his career, he let his lobster bait dream linger.
“But then I lost my job and I have had this idea for a long time, so it was a good opportunity. This is a big industry problem, so I thought, ‘How about I just approach it, try to address this?’ ” he said.
“If I can solve this problem in a very sustainable way, everyone is going to benefit. And the huge benefit is going to be the environment.”
A successful lobster bait alternative needs to effectively attract lobster, remain stable while on the ocean floor and must be comparable in cost to the bait currently used by lobster fishermen.
“Most of the product on the market now, or some of them, they may meet one of the criteria but not all three of them from all my research and conversations,” Tan said.
“I am not the first one to come up with this kind of idea of looking at byproducts, but I think I have some unique solutions, which I didn’t see in any of the commercialized product.”
With a prototype in the works, Tan said he now needs to arm himself with firsthand information from lobster fishermen. He wants to know what they’re using as bait, how it’s employed, glean more details about their work and get their thoughts on his plans.
“The whole idea is we need to reduce the byproduct from the fisheries. Whatever we take out from the sea now, we can find a way to put it back to the sea in a natural way,” he said.
Tan said he’s already met with several “very, very friendly and helpful” lobster fishermen in the Halifax area and learned a great deal more than he could from books or the internet. He’s eager to meet with more lobster fishermen and is willing to travel throughout the province to chat with them over coffee. “Always my treat. I insist,” he laughed. Tan said he’s also been speaking with provincial and federal regulatory bodies so that when he’s ready to finally test his prototype, he’ll be in compliance with all regulations.