South Brunswick Plans Flounder Hatchery
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(PRWEB) March 2, 2005 -- By Craig Holt
A group of southeastern N.C.
fishermen and a state representative, concerned about declining numbers of
flounder, have decided to take active measures to solve the problem. They’re
arranging funding to build a flounder hatchery at a Brunswick County high
school.
Tim Barefoot, a licensed-but-inactive commercial fisherman,
started the project along with a state representative and a high-school teacher
at South Brunswick High School. “I was introduced to (state representative)
Bonner Stiller (R-Brunswick) by David “Crockett” Long,” Barefoot said. “Bonner
said he could speed up the process and arranged for us to receive $18,000
through Speaker of the House Richard Morgan.”
Barefoot also has submitted
a request for a grant from N.C. Sea Grant, a governmental agency that funds
fisheries research. “The jury’s still out on that,” Barefoot said, “but the
Brunswick County Board of Education said they’d match (Morgan’s) donation. And
Bonner's help has been crucial; he’s shaved 5 years off the project.”
Not
only that, arrangements were made for the hatchery to be built and maintained by
students at South Brunswick High School. “Principal Bob Wilkerson gave us an
open-door policy to work with his students,” Barefoot said.
Barefoot said
he hopes the South Brunswick High hatchery will receive funds through the RSFL,
which has a clause that says funds can be used to support saltwater fisheries
research and development - including building hatcheries. “We’d like to get a
full-blown state hatchery built at some point,” Barefoot said. “But that’d be
through the (state) university system.”
Japanese southern flounder
hatcheries already are producing fish, and Barefoot said he has gotten help from
Harry Daniels, an N.C. State University professor who specializes in southern
flounder aquaculture.
North Carolina already is among national leaders in
rearing hybrid (white bass/stripers) bass.
Barefoot said South Brunswick
High School teacher Barry Beau, an aquaculture instructor, will head the
project. “Barry is a nationally known aquaculture instructor,” Barefoot said.
“We want to get the kids excited about aquaculture, and I think with the
hatchery it can be done. Barry’s kind of like Coach Mike Krzyzewski (Duke
basketball coach) in that he motivates his students. We want to show people they
don’t have to go to Duke or UNC (to get a good-paying job), that they can go
into aquaculture. We want to show these high school kids they can have an option
to farm fish.”
The first hatchery structure probably will resemble a hot
house for growing plants. The only requirement will be to maintain a constant
water temperature, 61 degrees Fahrenheit, because that’s the preferred
temperature for spawning flounder. The physical dimensions of the hatchery are
50x50 (2500 square feet). “We already have permission to release 25,000 southern
flounder (in N.C. waters),” Barefoot said. “We’ll use only N.C. wild flounder as
brood stock. Right now we’re in the process of collecting fish.” Once enough
juvenile flounders are raised in the hatchery, he said releases would be 2,000
flounder here, 2,000 flounder there. “The real key to being successful will be
having places for juvenile flounder to live. And that mean creation of oyster
beds,” he said.
Barefoot said many types of juvenile saltwater gamefish
grow up at oyster beds, including flounder, red drum and spotted seatrout. “We
also have a request in to build an oyster hatchery,” he said. "I see where Sen.
Marc Basnight (the N.C. Senate leader) is pushing for state funds to start an
oyster hatchery. So maybe we've already sparked something."
Oysters,
besides providing the best habitat for many juvenile saltwater fish species,
protect the environment by removing pollutants from water through their natural
filtration system. “We don’t want to throw the oysters out as a put-and-take
industry where we’d let ‘knockers’ shovel them up,” he said. “We went to create
natural reefs that will be off limits to dredging and would be a home for
growing red drum, flounder and other gamefish.”
Barefoot said oyster
reefs - of which North Carolina has very few - produce “spats,” juvenile
oysters. “That’d be a bonus, too, because juvenile oysters reproduce over and
over,” he said.
Preston Pate Jr., director of the N.C. Division of Marine
Fisheries, said he knew little about the southern flounder hatchery plan, but he
had some concerns about the project. “I don’t know (a lot about) what they’re
doing,” Pate said. “Certainly some issues need to be considered regarding a
hatchery, mainly the output (of fish) and the purpose. “If they’re building a
hatchery to support aquaculture, that’s one thing; if it’s to enhance the wild
stock, that’s another.”
Pate said he wasn’t worried so much about
reproducing flounder in an artificial setting as he was about “the
responsibility”. He said he would be reluctant to vote for expenditure of public
(RSFL funds) that might be subtracted from other projects, unless the money
would be “well spent”.
“I think very little is known about the survival
rate (of released (hatchery) flounder,” he said. “It’s probably going to be
dependent upon the stage (of growth, or size) of the flounder when they’re
released. It’s known the smaller the fish when it’s released the smaller the
chance of survival.
“Again, I don’t have any doubts they can raise
flounder large enough to survive in the wild, but how much money is it going to
take to raise flounder that large?”
Barefoot said hatchery-reared
flounder have a dark pigmentation on their underbellies that identifies them.
“That (dark color) is permanent, so when somebody catches one, they’ll know it,”
he said. “This way we don’t have to tag (the flounder). We’ve already got
several guys from around the Pamlico Sound with commercial (fishing) licenses
who will apply to Sea Grant next year to track the females. We hope to get
scientific proof these fish migrate out (of inshore waters) in the fall and ball
up around Hatteras and Ocracoke (inlets).”
Barefoot said he was
optimistic releasing southern flounder into N.C. inshore waters, plus building
more oyster reefs, would make a difference in eventual harvests. “What I want is
five years from now someone to drag in a 10-pound flounder, look at its bottom
side and see that dark color and say, ‘Oh my God! I’ve caught one of those
hatchery flounder.’ ”
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Source : http://www.prweb.com/releases/2005/3/prweb213419.htm