StarNewsonline.com, 27 December 2009
The UNCW aquaculture research facility at Wrightsville Beach is no ivory tower. Along with research and education, the program emphasizes community outreach and technology transfer as it seeks to make saltwater fish farming both commercially viable and environmentally sustainable.
That’s increasingly important as wild fish populations shrink. A four-month ban on grouper fishing starts in January, and additional catch limits and other regulations are being considered for numerous species.
Wade Watanabe, the program coordinator, says marine finfish are a “largely untapped resource” for farming. Most commercial aquaculture is for freshwater fish, because marine species have much more complex life cycles. But the program is making headway with southern flounder, black sea bass and red porgy, which are all commercially important, threatened by overfishing and native to North Carolina, he said.
In a tour this month, facility manager Patrick Carroll showed how the outside fish tanks become artificial environments where temperature and light cycles can be controlled to alter the spawning seasons.
Flounder specialist Troy Rezek demonstrated “strip-spawning” on an anesthetized female, harvesting her eggs by pressing them out in a fluid-looking stream. She produced an estimated 50,000 eggs, which were then artificially inseminated and incubated. That produces more viable eggs and also allows control and measurement of the process for research.
Source: StarNewsonline.com
