Brief Summary
The National Lobster Hatchery focuses on improving lobster survival rates by intervening during their vulnerable planktonic stage. They collect egg-bearing lobsters from local fishermen, nurture the larvae through their early stages in a controlled environment, and then release them back into the sea using dive releases and fisherman-assisted boat releases. The goal is to significantly increase the number of juvenile lobsters that survive to adulthood, thereby boosting local lobster populations and supporting the fishing industry.
- The hatchery aims to release 100,000 juvenile lobsters annually within the next 5 years.
- They improve survival rates by approximately a thousand times compared to natural conditions.
- Collaboration with local fishermen is crucial for obtaining brood stock and releasing lobsters back into their natural habitat.
Lobsters face high mortality rates during their early planktonic stage. The National Lobster Hatchery aims to bypass this vulnerable period to increase survival rates. By nurturing lobsters in a controlled environment, the hatchery helps them reach a stage where their natural survival rates are significantly higher.
The hatchery obtains brood stock from local fishermen, specifically egg-bearing lobsters, also known as "berried" females due to the blackberry-like appearance of their eggs. Once the eggs hatch, the female lobsters are returned to the fishermen or wholesalers from whom they were sourced. The eggs take a few weeks to hatch, producing larvae that are then moved to the larval room. The hatchery has ambitious goals to release around 100,000 juvenile lobsters into local seas each year, requiring the use of several hundred "berried" females.
The larval lobsters spend their first three stages of life in the larval room, molting three times before becoming bottom-dwelling stage four lobsters. They are kept in cones with circulating air and water to mimic their natural planktonic environment. The aim is to increase the survival rate of these larvae, which are fed copepods, krill, and other food to promote rapid growth. After about two weeks, they develop into small lobsters and move to the bottom, reducing their risk of predation.
After the larval room, lobsters are transferred to raceways or aqua hives. Aqua hives allow for higher densities of lobsters. Raceways are primarily used for visitors to view the stage four lobsters. These lobsters are fed specially formulated pellets to support their growth.
Lobsters are released back into the sea using two methods: dive releases for smaller numbers and boat releases for larger numbers. Boat releases involve using a tube to deliver the lobsters to the seabed in suitable habitats. The hatchery collaborates with local fishermen, who provide the brood stock, in the release process. This collaboration is essential for the project's success, as it ensures the fishermen are engaged and informed about the hatchery's work.
The hatchery's work is driven by a commitment to conservation and a desire to positively impact local lobster stocks. The hatchery improves the survival rate of lobsters by approximately a thousand times, bridging the gap between the vulnerable egg stage and the more resilient juvenile stage.
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Transcript
Full transcript of “The Lobster Life Cyle Process and Release”. Click a timestamp to open the video at that moment. Need another video? Use the YouTube transcript generator.
0:06 lobsters have quite an interesting life cycle they um have a period in their life where in their early stages just after they've hatched they're plank onic so they're very vulnerable and they have a very low survival rate during that stage of their life cycle and so what we're really trying to do is to get over make a big jump over that stage where they're very vulnerable and their survival rates are low and get get them into a stage of a life cycle where their natural survival rates are really really [Music] high the uh process here at the hatry begins with us getting our brood stock from the local fishermen now we get in lobsters with eggs on which we call buried and that name comes from the fact that their eggs look at the early stag of the development like uh blackberries
0:51 we can have a look in here and we've got this is a buried female you can see all the eggs under there now once L uh eggs have all come off the female we um send the lobster back to where it came from uh be the fisherman that caught it or the wholesaler Who provided us with it in the first place in a few weeks time these will should be ready to hatch and uh produce loads of ly which we can move through into the lavel room and uh hopefully eventually get them out to see I'm going to pop her back in the water now so she's uh all happy but there we go so the ch Char has got uh some quite High ambitious Targets on releasing lobsters and we want to be in the next 5 years releasing about 100,000 juveniles
1:38 into the Seas locally every year to do that we we use quite a few hens so a few hundred hens each year will go through our system well this is the Laval room where we bring our little Laval lobsters where they'll spend their first three stages of Life Now by three stages what I mean by that is that they will Mt three times times in this system before they become a little uh bottom living Lobster which we call a stage four they'll spend that time in these cones being swirled around by the air and water to try and simulate the environment that they would naturally be found in which is in the upper Plankton levels in the ocean where they're joining that whole Caravan of creatures and little fish eggs and things that are basically a soup of
2:25 living fish food and for that reason naturally very few lava lobsters actually survive to become an early benic phase Lobster our aim here is to increase that recruitment the population and increase the survival of these ly now these ly will spend about 2 weeks in here being fed on copi pod and krill uh and other food stuffs to help them grow strongly and as quickly as possible and um after the two weeks in here they'll start to develop into a proper little lobster and that's when they move onto the bottom and they're at much less risk of predation from fish and other things like that once they become that little stage four Lobster we'll move them through into the next room where they'll be placed into the aqua hives and
3:13 raceways so once the animals come through from the lavel room they go into raceways like this or the aqua hives over there which we use for the more intensive culturing numbers which enables us to keep a lot higher densities of animals in the facility without the aqua hives we wouldn't be able to prod the numbers that we are doing uh the raceways now we actually just use primarily to uh allow the visitors to see these little lobsters but the stage fors we've got in here a fresh out of the lavel room and uh these are the first point in their life that they've actually looked like a little baby Lobster they're in here getting fed on all the right types of food and we use specially formulated pellets for our uh stage four pluses and um these guys in here are feeding really well and we'll be growing nicely and we'll be released into the sea in the near future
4:04 when the animals are finished in the Hatchery obviously it's important they get out to seea now we release by two methods dive release where divers will escort the animals down to the seabed but in smaller numbers but to do large releases we uh use the help of the fisherman who were the guys who brought the lobsters to us in the first place doing the boat releases we basically have a big tube that goes down onto the seabed um and we will call the lobsters down there um as we drift along a reef or other features that we know lobsters like to live on just to make sure that when those little animals get down there they into their the best habitat possible and give them the best chance of survival and ultimately recruit into the stocks for the Fisheries we've just been out today with local fisherman Johnny Mt who took us
4:50 out and we managed to release a thousand lobsters uh around the coast of padto just this afternoon we're really quite fortunately located for that because the lobster Hatcher is located you know one of the one of the busiest uh crab and lobster fishing ports in the county we really do like to include the fishermen in our release schedule uh because they're bringing us in these buried hens that enable us to do our work so we want as many of the fishermen to be interested into the project into in use about the project as possible so we've got a greater chance of success throughout the whole season there's a lot of work involved and when when those animals are going back out to sea that's the target that's what we're aiming to achieve so when you see them go out to see it's very satisfying working on a conservation project like this has always been what I've wanted to do you
5:36 know I've come from an aquatic background myself been working in in aquariums for years I've studied aquaculture but to actually get into an actual project put you know with a real impact on on the local uh stocks is is really satisfying and I'm glad to be a part of it if you have a hen with 20,000 eggs we think in the Hatchery we can improve survival rate something like a thousand times so we're making the jump from an egg through the vulnerable stages of their life cycle to a stage where their natural survival rates are really really good
