Lindsay Margaret Laird (2 September 1949 – 2 August 2001) was a British biologist who was influential in the development of the aquaculture of salmon and other fishes through her research, teaching and the books that she produced. She defined the standards for Organic Farmed Salmon, and introduced quality assurance labelling for farmed salmon.
Education Lindsay Laird was educated at Worcester Grammar School for girls and at Newnham College, Cambridge where she not only read Natural Science (Zoology) but also played squash for Cambridge, gaining a half-blue. During her time at Cambridge a brown hairy moth from Borneo (Dasychira lairdi) was named after her. After graduation in 1971, an Atlantic Salmon Trust scholarship took her to Sutherland in the far north of Scotland to study the wild salmon of the River Brora,Laird L.M. (1972). The River Brora. Salmon and Trout Magazine 143-148. which was followed by Ph.D. studies on salmon and trout in North Wales under the supervision of Dr Jack JonesJones J.W. (1959). The Salmon. Collins (New Naturalist Library), London. of Liverpool University. Her work on salmon continued at Liverpool University where she obtained her Ph.D.in 1974 with her thesis Growth and Movements of Juvenile Atlantic Salmon & Brown Trout in AfonMynach.
Career Laird began her career in 1975 at the University of Stirling Aquatic Pathobiology Unit, on a Shell Fellowship. She also published key papers on basic techniques now considered routine: freeze branding of juvenile salmon, and benzocaine as a fish anaesthetic. The following year she obtained Nuffield Foundation funding for a project at Aberdeen University on methods of inducing auto-immune rejection of fish gonads.
She applied her fundamental knowledge of life cycles of salmon to the developing aquaculture industry in Scotland and Norway which at that time was struggling with problems of control of sexual maturation in salmon. She conducted in Norway the first experiments on autoimmune sterilization of salmon by injection.Laird L.M., Wilson, A.R. & Holliday, F.G.T. (1980). Field trials of a method of induction of autoimmune gonad rejection in Atlantic salmon (Salmo salar L.) Reprod. Nutr. Develop., 20, 1761-1788. She foresaw the need to control of the life cycle of salmon in captivity in order to make production more predictable and also more profitable.
After she defined the standards for Organic Farmed Salmon (together with K. McCallum of Orkney Salmon), her concept of a green label for farmed salmon to provide quality assurance for customers was taken up by firms such as Marks & Spencer.
In 1988 she became a Teaching fellow and Aquaculture Development Officer at the University of Aberdeen, where she developed the Bachelor of Technology (B. Tech.) in Aquaculture, jointly run with the Scottish Agricultural College. She joined the Scottish Fisheries Committee the next year, monitoring effects of the electricity industry on salmon and other fisheries, and was also invited by Shetland Salmon Farming Association to advise on the Braer oil pollution spill.
She was invited to join the Scottish Salmon Strategy Task Force in 1995, and in 1998 became Vice-President of the Scottish Executive Fisheries Committee.
Beyond Scotland, from 1992 she was involved in EU education and training programmes FORCE, COMETT, ERASMUS and LEONARDO. Between 1992 and 1997 she spent periods of time at the Danum Valley Research Centre, Sabah, funded by the Royal Society and the Natural Environment Research Council (NERC), and on aquaculture and fisheries projects in Sarawak, Philippines, Taiwan and Singapore. In 1994 she worked in the Kola Peninsula, Russia, journeying across the tundra near Murmansk in Russian ex-military helicopters to report on salmon fishing for the British Council. In 1997 she was UK delegate on the EU ALFA project, visiting fish farms in Chile.
Lindsay Laird died from cancer in 2001. Her name was given to the Lindsay Laird Innovation in Aquaculture Award, inaugurated in 2008.
Books Laird co-edited Salmon and Trout Farming (1988)Laird L.M. & Needham T. (Eds.) (1988). Salmon and Trout Farming. Ellis Horwood (Wiley), Chichester. England. . and co-wrote Handbook of Salmon Farming (2002).Stead S.M. & Laird L.M. (2002). Handbook of Salmon Farming. Springer-Praxis, Chichester, England. . She also translated Aquaculture Volumes 1 & 2 (1990)Barnabé G. (Laird L.M. translator) (1990). Aquaculture, Volumes 1 & 2. Ellis Horwood (Simon & Schuster) Chichester. England. and Carp Biology and Farming from the original French.
Board memberships and directorships 1992: Fellowship, Institute of Fisheries Management, (Training Committee)
1992: Director of AquaTT, Irish Aquaculture Training Partnership
1993: Board of Directors, Lakeland Marine Farm Ltd
1994-2000: Board member of European Aquaculture Society (EAS)
1997-2001: Board member, AMC Ltd. Ireland
1998: first Chairman, Organic Fish Producers Association
Honours Lindsay Laird Student Award for Innovation in Aquaculture (jointly awarded by AQUATT and AQUALEX Multimedia Consortium Ltd) Lindsay Margaret Laird Prize (Zoology), University of Aberdeen (best student in MSc Marine and Fisheries Science)
Selected research publications Laird LM et al., 1975. Freeze branding of juvenile salmon, Journal of Fish Biology, Vol 7 (2) 167-171 Laird LM & RL Oswald, 1975. A Note on the use of benzocaine(Ethyl P-Aminobenzoate) as a fish anaesthetic. Aquaculture Research, Vol 6 (4) 92-94 1980. Field trials of a method of induction of autoimmunegonad rejection in Atlantic salmon (Salmon salar L.). Keith M. Martin-Smith, Lindsay M. Laird, Luke Bullough and Matthew G. Lewis, 1990. Mechanisms of maintenance of tropical freshwater fish in the face of disturbance, Philosophical Transactions, Royal Society B. DOI: 10.1098/rstb.1999.0522
Editorial and translations 1984: Series editor Ellis Horwood Aquaculture and Fisheries Support series. 1988: Salmon and Trout Farming (Laird & Needham, Eds), 10 editions, Ellis Horwood. 1990: Aquaculture (2 volumes) G.Barnabe Translation. 1994: Report on salmon fishing in Russia for British Council. 1997: AQUALEX, European multilingual aquaculture glossary, John Wiley & Sons 1999: Carp, Biology and Culture R. Billiard Translation. 2000: Aquaculture section, Encyclopedia of Ocean Sciences, Editor J. Steele, Woods Hole Oceanographic Institute. 2002: Handbook of Salmon Farming (Stead & Laird, Eds) 8 editions, Springer.
Publications
Refereed publications Laird L.M. (1972). The River Brora. Salmon and Trout Magazine 143-148.
Laird L.M., Roberts, RJ, Shearer WM & McArdle, JF (1975). Freeze branding of juvenile salmon. J. Fish Biol. 7, 167-171.
Laird L.M. & Oswald, RL (1975). A note on the use of benzocaine (Ethyl-P-aminobenzoate) as a fish anaesthetic. Fish Mgmt 6, 92-94.
Laird L.M. and Stott B, (1978). Marking and tagging. In Methods for the Assessment of Fish Production in freshwaters. Ed Bagenal, T. 84-100.
Laird L.M., Ellis, AE, Wilson, AR & Holliday, FGT (1978). The development of the gonadal and immune systems of the Atlantic salmon (Salmo salar L.) and a consideration of the possibility of inducing autoimmune destruction of the testis. Ann. Biol. Anim. Bioch. Biophys., 18, 1101-1106.
Laird L.M. (1978) Marking Fish. In, Animal Marking and Tagging. Macmillan, London.
Laird L.M. & Wilson, AR (1979). A method for improving the survival of fish eggs during transportation. Fish. Mgmt 110, 129-131.
Laird L.M., Wilson, AR & Holliday, FGT (1980). Lesions observed in the testis of precociously maturing male Atlantic salmon, Salmo salar L. J.Fish Biol. 17, 343-348.
Laird L.M., Wilson, AR & Holliday, FGT (1980). Field trials of a method of induction of autoimmune gonad rejection in Atlantic salmon (Salmo salar L.) Reprod. Nutr. Develop., 20, 1761-1788.
Laird L.M., (1980). Control of reproduction in farmed salmonids. Proceedings of the 12th Annual Study Course, Institute of Fisheries Management.
Secombes, C.J., Laird, L.M. and Priede, I.G. (1982). Fish sterilisation: the autoimmune approach. In: Reproductive Physiology of Fish. (ed. by C.J.J. Richter and H.J.Th. Goos). Pudoc, Wageningen, p. 81.
Secombes, C.J., Lewis, A.E., Laird, L.M., Needham, E.A. and Priede, I.G. (1984). Agglutination of spermatozoa by autoantibodies in the rainbow trout (Salmo gairdneri). J. Fish Biology 25: 691-696.
Secombes, C.J., Lewis, A.E., Laird, L.M., Needham, E.A. and Priede, I.G. (1985). Experimentally induced immune reactions to gonad in rainbow trout (Salmo gairdneri). In: The FSBI Symposium on Fish Immunology. (ed. by M.J. Manning and M.F. Tatner). Academic Press, London, pp. 343–355.
Secombes, C.J., Lewis, A.E., Needham, E.A., Laird, L.M. and Priede, I.G. (1985). Appearance of autoantigens during gonad maturation in the rainbow trout (Salmo gairdneri). J. Exp. Zoology 233: 425-431.
Secombes, C.J., Needham, E.A., Laird, L.M., Lewis, A.E. and Priede, I.G. (1985). The long-term effects of auto-immunologically induced granulomas on the testes of rainbow trout (Salmo gairdneri, Richardson). J. Fish Biol. 26: 483-489.
Secombes, C.J., Lewis, A.E., Laird, L.M., Needham, E.A. and Priede, I.G. (1985). The role of autoantibodies in the autoimmune response to testis in rainbow trout (Salmo gairdneri). Immunology 56: 409-415.
Secombes, C.J., Laird, L.M. and Priede, I.G. (1987). Immunological approaches to control maturation in fish. II. A review of the autoimmune approach. Aquaculture 60: 287-302.
Laird L.M. & Needham, EA, (1988) Salmon farming and the future of the Atlantic salmon. In The status of the Atlantic salmon in Scotland. ITE/NERC publication, Ed Jenkins D., 66-72
Noack P, McLay, HA, Noble LR & Laird L.M. (1996). Carotenoid pigments as a means for differentiating eggs and offspring of anadromous and non-anadromous trout. Physiology of Migratory Fish. Symposium proceedings. International Congress on the biology of fishes. Eds McCormick, S., Sheridan M., Patino R and MacKinlay, D. pp 91–99.
Laird L.M. (1996). History and Applications of salmonid culture. In Principles of salmonid culture. Pennell W and Barton BA (Eds). pp 1 – 28 Elsevier.
Laird L.M. (1997). Salmon and Trout Farming. Nutrition and Food Science 3, 101-104.
Youngson AF, Mitchell AI, Noack, PT and Laird L.M. (1997). Carotenoid pigment profiles distinguish anadromous and nonanadromous brown trout (Salmo trutta). Can.J. Fish. Aquat. Sci. 54: 1064-1066.
Noack PT, Laird L.M., Priede IG (1997). Carotenoids of sea lice (Lepeophtheirus salmonis) as potential indicators of host Atlantic salmon (Salmo salar L.). ICES Journal of Marine Science, 54: 1140-1143.
Martin-Smith KM, Laird L.M., (1998). Depauperate freshwater fish communities in Sabah: the role of barriers to movement and habitat quality. J. Fish Biol. 53 (Supplement A) 331 – 344.
Martin-Smith KM, Laird L.M., Bullough L & Lewis MG (1999). Mechanisms of maintenance of tropical freshwater fish communities in the face of disturbance. Phil Trans R.Soc.Lond.B 18-3-1810.
Martin-Smith, K. M. & Laird, L.M. (1999). Reproductive patterns in some Cypriniformes from Borneo. Proc. 5th Indo-Pac. Fish Conf., Nouméa 1997 (eds. B. Seret & J.-Y. Sire): 493-504. Paris: Soc. Fr. Ichtyol.
Martin-Smith, K. M., Bullough, L. & Laird, L.M. (1999). Short-term movements of freshwater fishes in Sabah, Borneo. Proc. 5th Indo-Pac. Fish Conf., Nouméa 1997 (eds. B. Seret & J.-Y. Sire): 45-56. Paris: Soc. Fr. Ichtyol.
Conference abstracts Revell B, Laird L.M., and Clay P (1995). Benefits of introducing a system of Electronic Auctions in the Fish Industry. In Quality in Aquaculture, European Aquaculture Society Special Publication No 23.
Laird L.M. (1998). Development and Operation of Quality Standards for Farmed Atlantic Salmon, Salmo salar L: A Case Study. In Book of Abstracts, World Aquaculture 1998, World Aquaculture Society.