[Music]
do you ever think about fish do you
think about fish beyond what you’re
having for supper or the next fishing
trip so do you really think about fish I
think about fish every day I have a
passion for it I’ve been culturing fish
for 40 years in a 2014 Washington Post
article titled the end of fish the
writer referred to a 2010 TED talk by
chef Dan barbers and his question how do
you keep fish on your menus and the
article researchers report the oceans
can’t keep up with the demand for fish
and fish populations may collapse by
2050 in fact the United Nations report
says that 92 percent of the 600 species
of fish monitored by the world food
organization or the FAO are
overexploited fully exploited or
depleted the answer for now how do we
keep fish on our menu is aquaculture
fish farming so if you like fish make
your peace with them this is in the
article before they are gone so maybe
we’ll think about fish a different way
amenities the Waddell mariculture Center
in Bluffton mariculture means farming of
seafood plant and animal in saltwater
the mariculture is a research and
development platform where we identify
potential marine species for seafood
production and this work is extremely
important especially in the United
States where we import now 91 percent of
our seafood most of that comes from Asia
of the top 10 species of seafood that we
consume five now or partially or
completely farm raised and that includes
number one shrimp we import over a
billion pounds each year and most of
that is farm raised the other thing we
do at Waddell which is experient for
recreational fishermen is that we
develop tools for rebuilding
recreationally important wild fish
stocks and we do that by releasing
hatchery
produce fish back into the wild they’re
genetically tagged so we can identify
those with a small piece of genetic
material and we can look at our
contribution to the wild fish population
and by doing that we can estimate how
many fish are in that population it’s a
wonderful management tool to better
understand our fish populations we can
also look at age distribution within
that population for example red drum
lived to be over 50 years old so we want
to make sure we have the correct number
of young fish and old fish within that
population so this work is extremely
interesting very important this past
year or right this year we’ve already
released 2 million fish back into the
wild all marked for identification in
future years the mariculture Center is
located here in Beaufort southern
Beaufort County on what we call Victoria
Bluff it’s a perfect place to to run
operate manage a mariculture research
facility Beaufort County is quite unique
it has no freshwater rivers or streams
all the water that we have in these
large estuaries like in the Carlton
River here or tightly control so the
salinity is extremely high the salt
content at ocean waters around 35 grams
per liter salt and the water’s average
about 32 grams per liter salt in the
culture River it’s high it’s stable and
the waters are classified as outstanding
resource waters the highest
classification you can have in the
United States perfect place for our work
the Mara culture center has 25 ponds it
has tanks it has a hatchery has feed
storage facilities it’s got everything
you need to be productive for this
resource the features that stand out
more prominently than anything else with
our ponds and that is where all the
action takes place we can grow
crustaceans shrimp we’ve grown thin fish
I think nine species of shrimp nine
species of fin fish we can grow it for
food production and we could grow it for
releasing fish back into the wild the
ponds range from a quarter
maker to acre and a half in size they
are twice as long as they are wide to
have salt water systems pumped in so we
can have water exchange failing things
like that we can filter the water before
it goes into the ponds to remove
predators and competitors we can provide
aeration we monitor water quality
closely and we do a great job at this
work so we’ve been able to demonstrate
for example food production and shrimp a
lot of it said original technology and
shrimp production was performed at
Waddell back in the 80s and 90s when we
were part of the US Marine Corps farming
program and we were able to achieve
great numbers in fact that technology
has been exported to countries all over
the world there were three million acres
and shrimp ponds now in the world
producing seafood we’re now growing fish
in our ponds for release as well and
that work will continue as we
re-establish and rebuild our wild fish
populations we’re also developed some
indoor systems this is our indoor shrimp
system it’s what we call a biofloc based
system or a no exchange system and we
recycle salt water in here we can start
shrimping great numbers we form a
non-native pacific white shrimp that is
free of any pathogens of concern and we
can stock these at very high numbers and
because we can control the environment
we’re able to produce three props a
shrimp a year so we’re consistently
getting about 200,000 pounds of shrimp
per acre per year
very good technology and and because you
can recycle water this technology has
been adapted to in the interior of the
United States and places like Indiana
and Michigan to growing fresh saltwater
shrimp got that right we’re also working
with some researchers out of Brazil and
Spain to develop a poly culture system
recirculating system basing it on the
initial work with the shrimp research
well where we took we took shrimp
raceways we moved that water to tanks of
tilapia where they filtered the
nutrient-rich biofloc and then the water
is saddle
goes into a tank of Redrum we did add
some shellfish and then the water goes
back into the shrimp tank so it’s
recycling we’re able to get three crops
of shrimp a year to crops in salafiyyah
and a crop of red drum and this is
really good when you’re trying to
diversify their markets and sell to
different locations and it was except we
actually marketed fish and to help head
Bluffton in different areas and the
product was well-received in fact in
Brazil they are already adapting this
technology for our stocking program we
capture adult fish we place them into
specialized tanks where we control water
temperature and photo period to induce
spawning we don’t handle the fish they
spawn on their own then we captured the
eggs they they overflow into an egg
collector the eggs are lightweight they
float and then we’re able to place those
in a hatchery and let them hatch in 24
hours then we get our genetic samples so
we can identify markers to track these
fish the rest of their life
we were spawning cobia red drum and
spotted seatrout
this these are cobia these are the cobia
eggs this is a newly hatched cobia
there’s a 48-hour old cobia with good
eye development and then a 72 hour cobia
at that time there are actually
predators and start feeding so looking
for zooplankton rotifers and copepods
and they will grow very rapidly will
hold them in ponds for four to six weeks
and then we’ll stock them back into the
wild
this fish cobia can actually grow 15
pounds his first year very fast grower
we we always kid about we can watch them
grow while they’re in the ponds
literally while we’re running the
hatchery we’re taking our ponds we’re
adding water we’re putting out organic
fertilizers like cottonseed Milty and do
some phytoplankton production with
filter the water and we place our fish
into the ponds they’re in there for four
to thirty to 40 days and then we drained
the ponds each pond is fitted with a
catch basin it
below pond bottom concrete structure
where we can take a dip net fitted net
and run through the Raceway and harvest
fish place them into various types of
containers and then we put them on a
Hall in tank and it’s distributed up and
down to coast of South Carolina we’ve
worked with a large number of species
having to close the life cycle of the of
these these fish and these crustaceans
be able to run a hatchery being able to
grow larvae provide the appropriate
feeds form understand the best
temperatures that they grow understand
the salinities that they require for
production we have to learn everything
we can about these to get a good product
whether it’s for food production or to
release why is this important we have a
rapidly growing population this is not
the beaches on hill they don’t own the
September we have a population of seven
and a half billion people that
populations go into nine and a half
billion people by 2050 we’re going to
have to be able to double food
production by then 47% of all seafood
today is farm raised in 2014 we actually
produce more fish through farming that
were wok called so there’s going to be a
challenge there to meet that challenge
we’re gonna have to grow more seafood
we’re going to develop better
technologies be more efficient be more
sustainable we’re going to do a lot of
work the next generation of young people
are going to have to meet those
challenges so when you go into a seafood
market you might want to start asking
questions where did it come from what’s
the quality of it and realize that the
number of these species will now be farm
raised there’s going to be a lot of
challenges amber hit on some of them for
example sharks now harvest at a rate of
a hundred million a year primarily for
the shark fin fishery anchovies have
been harvested alarming rate in fact
Peru
in Spain are now regulating the harvest
of the anchovy population because it’s
not sustainable there’s a high demand
for it because it’s used in to make fish
flour or fish meal that are used in the
aquaculture industry it’s also using the
pad industry so it’s a high demand for
the product but there’s a limited supply
for the research is now being done on
growing marine algae that can be turned
into a flower and there’s interest now
in using insects as a source of protein
for agriculture feeds we’re looking at
bycatch and regulations on trawling
worldwide bycatch levels are 30 pounds
of fish for every pound of shrimp not in
South Carolina we have regulations it’s
much lower than that we’re worried about
nutrient rich waters giving it to the
ocean creating toxic blooms that can not
only be harmful to marine life but to
people on the beaches the next or
microplastics which we’re finding in the
digestive tract of fish and even in your
oysters those are concerns that we need
to address pharmaceuticals we’re seeing
no large numbers of pharmaceuticals in
our waterways the number one is
antibiotics how does that affect fish
populations research has been looked at
now about how Prozac affects shellfish
they don’t like to spawn where in their
own Prozac and then fish piracy is an
issue trawlers going into countries that
really can’t afford to operate a Navy to
prevent that I think it’s around a two
hundred billion dollar industry this is
in Indonesia or the Chinese vessel was
caught stealing fish and it was
destroyed so a lot of challenges what to
dress in the future what you’re going to
see new seafood production systems
coming to your community there’s a lot
of interest in community farming
providing fresh never frozen product
that will be good for you including some
vegetables and some of the hydroponic or
aquaponic systems a lot of challenges
things that we’re going to have to meet
some of these will be fresh water some
will be saltwater
and that’s all I got except next time
you look at fish what are you going to
think about do your next fishing trip or
what you’re going to find on the menu
thank you
[Laughter]
do you ever think about fish do you
think about fish beyond what you’re
having for supper or the next fishing
trip so do you really think about fish I
think about fish every day I have a
passion for it I’ve been culturing fish
for 40 years in a 2014 Washington Post
article titled the end of fish the
writer referred to a 2010 TED talk by
chef Dan barbers and his question how do
you keep fish on your menus and the
article researchers report the oceans
can’t keep up with the demand for fish
and fish populations may collapse by
2050 in fact the United Nations report
says that 92 percent of the 600 species
of fish monitored by the world food
organization or the FAO are
overexploited fully exploited or
depleted the answer for now how do we
keep fish on our menu is aquaculture
fish farming so if you like fish make
your peace with them this is in the
article before they are gone so maybe
we’ll think about fish a different way
amenities the Waddell mariculture Center
in Bluffton mariculture means farming of
seafood plant and animal in saltwater
the mariculture is a research and
development platform where we identify
potential marine species for seafood
production and this work is extremely
important especially in the United
States where we import now 91 percent of
our seafood most of that comes from Asia
of the top 10 species of seafood that we
consume five now or partially or
completely farm raised and that includes
number one shrimp we import over a
billion pounds each year and most of
that is farm raised the other thing we
do at Waddell which is experient for
recreational fishermen is that we
develop tools for rebuilding
recreationally important wild fish
stocks and we do that by releasing
hatchery
produce fish back into the wild they’re
genetically tagged so we can identify
those with a small piece of genetic
material and we can look at our
contribution to the wild fish population
and by doing that we can estimate how
many fish are in that population it’s a
wonderful management tool to better
understand our fish populations we can
also look at age distribution within
that population for example red drum
lived to be over 50 years old so we want
to make sure we have the correct number
of young fish and old fish within that
population so this work is extremely
interesting very important this past
year or right this year we’ve already
released 2 million fish back into the
wild all marked for identification in
future years the mariculture Center is
located here in Beaufort southern
Beaufort County on what we call Victoria
Bluff it’s a perfect place to to run
operate manage a mariculture research
facility Beaufort County is quite unique
it has no freshwater rivers or streams
all the water that we have in these
large estuaries like in the Carlton
River here or tightly control so the
salinity is extremely high the salt
content at ocean waters around 35 grams
per liter salt and the water’s average
about 32 grams per liter salt in the
culture River it’s high it’s stable and
the waters are classified as outstanding
resource waters the highest
classification you can have in the
United States perfect place for our work
the Mara culture center has 25 ponds it
has tanks it has a hatchery has feed
storage facilities it’s got everything
you need to be productive for this
resource the features that stand out
more prominently than anything else with
our ponds and that is where all the
action takes place we can grow
crustaceans shrimp we’ve grown thin fish
I think nine species of shrimp nine
species of fin fish we can grow it for
food production and we could grow it for
releasing fish back into the wild the
ponds range from a quarter
maker to acre and a half in size they
are twice as long as they are wide to
have salt water systems pumped in so we
can have water exchange failing things
like that we can filter the water before
it goes into the ponds to remove
predators and competitors we can provide
aeration we monitor water quality
closely and we do a great job at this
work so we’ve been able to demonstrate
for example food production and shrimp a
lot of it said original technology and
shrimp production was performed at
Waddell back in the 80s and 90s when we
were part of the US Marine Corps farming
program and we were able to achieve
great numbers in fact that technology
has been exported to countries all over
the world there were three million acres
and shrimp ponds now in the world
producing seafood we’re now growing fish
in our ponds for release as well and
that work will continue as we
re-establish and rebuild our wild fish
populations we’re also developed some
indoor systems this is our indoor shrimp
system it’s what we call a biofloc based
system or a no exchange system and we
recycle salt water in here we can start
shrimping great numbers we form a
non-native pacific white shrimp that is
free of any pathogens of concern and we
can stock these at very high numbers and
because we can control the environment
we’re able to produce three props a
shrimp a year so we’re consistently
getting about 200,000 pounds of shrimp
per acre per year
very good technology and and because you
can recycle water this technology has
been adapted to in the interior of the
United States and places like Indiana
and Michigan to growing fresh saltwater
shrimp got that right we’re also working
with some researchers out of Brazil and
Spain to develop a poly culture system
recirculating system basing it on the
initial work with the shrimp research
well where we took we took shrimp
raceways we moved that water to tanks of
tilapia where they filtered the
nutrient-rich biofloc and then the water
is saddle
goes into a tank of Redrum we did add
some shellfish and then the water goes
back into the shrimp tank so it’s
recycling we’re able to get three crops
of shrimp a year to crops in salafiyyah
and a crop of red drum and this is
really good when you’re trying to
diversify their markets and sell to
different locations and it was except we
actually marketed fish and to help head
Bluffton in different areas and the
product was well-received in fact in
Brazil they are already adapting this
technology for our stocking program we
capture adult fish we place them into
specialized tanks where we control water
temperature and photo period to induce
spawning we don’t handle the fish they
spawn on their own then we captured the
eggs they they overflow into an egg
collector the eggs are lightweight they
float and then we’re able to place those
in a hatchery and let them hatch in 24
hours then we get our genetic samples so
we can identify markers to track these
fish the rest of their life
we were spawning cobia red drum and
spotted seatrout
this these are cobia these are the cobia
eggs this is a newly hatched cobia
there’s a 48-hour old cobia with good
eye development and then a 72 hour cobia
at that time there are actually
predators and start feeding so looking
for zooplankton rotifers and copepods
and they will grow very rapidly will
hold them in ponds for four to six weeks
and then we’ll stock them back into the
wild
this fish cobia can actually grow 15
pounds his first year very fast grower
we we always kid about we can watch them
grow while they’re in the ponds
literally while we’re running the
hatchery we’re taking our ponds we’re
adding water we’re putting out organic
fertilizers like cottonseed Milty and do
some phytoplankton production with
filter the water and we place our fish
into the ponds they’re in there for four
to thirty to 40 days and then we drained
the ponds each pond is fitted with a
catch basin it
below pond bottom concrete structure
where we can take a dip net fitted net
and run through the Raceway and harvest
fish place them into various types of
containers and then we put them on a
Hall in tank and it’s distributed up and
down to coast of South Carolina we’ve
worked with a large number of species
having to close the life cycle of the of
these these fish and these crustaceans
be able to run a hatchery being able to
grow larvae provide the appropriate
feeds form understand the best
temperatures that they grow understand
the salinities that they require for
production we have to learn everything
we can about these to get a good product
whether it’s for food production or to
release why is this important we have a
rapidly growing population this is not
the beaches on hill they don’t own the
September we have a population of seven
and a half billion people that
populations go into nine and a half
billion people by 2050 we’re going to
have to be able to double food
production by then 47% of all seafood
today is farm raised in 2014 we actually
produce more fish through farming that
were wok called so there’s going to be a
challenge there to meet that challenge
we’re gonna have to grow more seafood
we’re going to develop better
technologies be more efficient be more
sustainable we’re going to do a lot of
work the next generation of young people
are going to have to meet those
challenges so when you go into a seafood
market you might want to start asking
questions where did it come from what’s
the quality of it and realize that the
number of these species will now be farm
raised there’s going to be a lot of
challenges amber hit on some of them for
example sharks now harvest at a rate of
a hundred million a year primarily for
the shark fin fishery anchovies have
been harvested alarming rate in fact
Peru
in Spain are now regulating the harvest
of the anchovy population because it’s
not sustainable there’s a high demand
for it because it’s used in to make fish
flour or fish meal that are used in the
aquaculture industry it’s also using the
pad industry so it’s a high demand for
the product but there’s a limited supply
for the research is now being done on
growing marine algae that can be turned
into a flower and there’s interest now
in using insects as a source of protein
for agriculture feeds we’re looking at
bycatch and regulations on trawling
worldwide bycatch levels are 30 pounds
of fish for every pound of shrimp not in
South Carolina we have regulations it’s
much lower than that we’re worried about
nutrient rich waters giving it to the
ocean creating toxic blooms that can not
only be harmful to marine life but to
people on the beaches the next or
microplastics which we’re finding in the
digestive tract of fish and even in your
oysters those are concerns that we need
to address pharmaceuticals we’re seeing
no large numbers of pharmaceuticals in
our waterways the number one is
antibiotics how does that affect fish
populations research has been looked at
now about how Prozac affects shellfish
they don’t like to spawn where in their
own Prozac and then fish piracy is an
issue trawlers going into countries that
really can’t afford to operate a Navy to
prevent that I think it’s around a two
hundred billion dollar industry this is
in Indonesia or the Chinese vessel was
caught stealing fish and it was
destroyed so a lot of challenges what to
dress in the future what you’re going to
see new seafood production systems
coming to your community there’s a lot
of interest in community farming
providing fresh never frozen product
that will be good for you including some
vegetables and some of the hydroponic or
aquaponic systems a lot of challenges
things that we’re going to have to meet
some of these will be fresh water some
will be saltwater
and that’s all I got except next time
you look at fish what are you going to
think about do your next fishing trip or
what you’re going to find on the menu
thank you
[Laughter]
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