Time Magazine Cover Story on Aquaculture

This week's Time magazine has a cover story on aquaculture.  Developing a sustainable aquaculture industry is one way to help alleviate pressure on wild stocks.  This is sure to be an important concept going forward.  I'd encourage anyone interested to check it out.

A Dream in the Making

Brian O'Hanlon, Founder of Open Blue Sea Farms at cages holding 300 g cobia

 At an early age, Brian O’Hanlon recognized a major problem developing within the seafood industry.  Growing up in New York, his father in the seafood business at the city’s famous Fulton Fish Market, he recalls that the family business never had any difficulty finding clients to sell fish to—the problem was finding quality fish to sell.  Presumably, greater pressure on wild stocks and an increased demand for seafood products was creating a shortage for quality products in the marketplace.  In 1999, at 19 years of age, O’Hanlon remembers his father challenging him to think outside the box. “ ‘If you could you could farm raise any fish, what would it be?’ my father asked me,” said O’Hanlon over dinner at his cobia farm in Northern Panama. “ ‘Red snapper,’ I said, ‘the supply is crashing and the price is high.’”   Determined to develop a high quality aquaculture product in a sustainable manner, O’Hanlon made a trip down to the Gulf of Mexico and brought up live red snapper to his parents’ house in Long Island.

O’Hanlon set up a makeshift laboratory in his parents’ basement, and was able to successfully spawn the fish in captivity. On a trip to Florida’s Harbor Branch research institute to improve his skills in Aquaculture, O’Hanlon met Dr. Benetti, currently a faculty member at University of Miami. When he told Benetti that the snapper he had in his homemade laboratory been spawning, O’Hanlon recalls that the experienced aquaculturist had to see the fish with his own eyes to believe it.  After a trip up to Long Island, Benetti and O'Hanlon have remained close friends and research partners ever since.

            What started as teenager’s pipedream to farm the sea is now coming becoming reality. Now 12 years after his initial laboratory experiments, the 31- year-old believes that his facility, Open Blue Sea Farms, may be the largest producer of farm-raised cobia in the world.  While production numbers are still modest, the farm is now producing between 10 and 15 thousand pounds of cobia per week to markets that include Miami, Chicago, and San Francisco and Panama City.

Feeding roughly 30,000 3-4 kg cobia at one of Open Blue's Sea Stations. We have great video from inside the cage we hope to upload once we have more bandwidth in the States.

 Open Blue Sea Farms focuses its business model on providing a high quality, fresh product, and maintains sustainability as a core value. Open Blue Sea Farms is part of a larger, environmentally-minded movement to move aquaculture grow-out facilities away from the coasts to the offshore environment. Offshore siting can minimize habitat destruction and minimize water quality impacts by producing fish in nutrient-poor blue water, which is more capable of assimilating nitrogenous wastes and other particles emitted from cages. Currently, Open Blue Sea Farms raises fish in a series of cages according size.  Cages which hold the largest, eventual market-sized fish are approximately seven miles offshore.

Fish farming for O’Hanlon has not come without its trials and tribulations.  He recalls burning down half of parents’ Long Island house due to a failure in his basement laboratory, shortcomings of his first venture, “Snapper Farm,” in Puerto Rico, and the current challenges of developing a fish farm along the fringes of civilization.

Open Blue Sea Farms is currently undergoing a process of expansion in order to ramp up production.  Currently, the company receives fingerlings produced at the University of Miami Experimental Hatchery that are stocked into at-sea cages.  O’Hanlon’s eventual goal is to produce fingerlings on site in order to vertically integrate his business. While the road ahead for O’Hanlon and Open Blue Sea Farms may present some obstacles, it is clear that O’Hanlon has the tenacity to overcome them.  “If you believe in something, and you try you hardest to make it work, I have to believe you will be successful.”  O’Hanlon said.

300 g cobia at the water's surface waiting to be fed

Feed boat approaching one of Open Blue's cages.

Photos from Puerto Lindo, Panama and Open Blue Sea Farms

James feeds 300 g cobia

A  fisherman  in a dugout canoe  just a few hundred meters from the cages at Open Blue Sea Farms creates a juxtaposition of traditional and modern "fisheries."

Loading up the M/V Lakota, owned by Open Blue Sea Farms to tow and anchor offshore cages.

Alex Garcia and James Baros, University of Miami outside the Sea Station.

Javier, one of Open Blue Sea Farms Managers dives to maintain an intake pipe.

The Feed Boat

A spider monkey on "monkey island,"  which lies adjacent to Open Blue Sea Farms.

A two-toed sloth that we spotted over our dinner table.  There's a tremendous amount of wildlife in the area.

Hans (right) is a Dutch settler who cooked us great dinner at the only nearby Restaurant.

Isla Grande is a lesser known tourist destination, but well kept secret.

Rob Naeny, University of Miami, loosing a thumb war with a friend.

Weaned Yellowfin Tuna

30 Days Post Hatch Yellowfin Tuna at Achotines Laboratory. Photo by D. Benetti.

  

Our group, working with Achotines staff,  has successfully weaned several dozen yellowfin tuna larvae now at 30 days post hatch, although continued growth and survival on the weaning diet remains to be observed.  Weaning is the process of transitioning farm raised fish larvae from a live diet (rotifers and artemia) to dry feeds (pellets).  Successful weaning is difficult when  working yellowfin tuna.  Great job guys- especially Richard Kniffin who has put in the extra effort.

Achotines has routinely switched YFT to artificial diet at this age. According to Dr. Scholey, Director of Achotines Laboratory, what happens over the next 30 to 60 days to yellowfin tuna larvae with pellet feed is what is more"interesting."

A New Hatchery for Open Blue Sea Farms

Working on the electrical system at Open Blue Sea Farms, Panam

Pat Dunaway gathering supplies for a "sun tube" (algae culture ) holder.

  Last night was quite a long wide through wild twists and turns in the darkness. Nonethess we’ve arrived safely at Open Blue Sea Farms.    We’re quickly learning the challenges of constructing a Hatchery Facility in a realtively isolated area.  Drew Davis is doing a great job setting up the rotifer culture with the limited resources we have (no running water or enrichment).  Today the group put its carpentry and troubleshooting skills to the test.

Team Swap

University of Miami students exchanged places today.  I’m on my way with Drew Davis, James Baros and Alex Garcia to Open Blue Sea Farms hatchery in Puerto Lindo in the Province of Colon, situated in the southeast area of the country.   It’s quite a long trek- almost 8 hours in all to the other Caribbean side of the country. We were reunited today with our friend Javier OBS’s Hatchery Manager, who had been training this spring at the University of Miami Experimental Hatchery.  We’ll be busy the next few days helping the farm setting up the facility for fingerling production!

Yellowfin Tuna Capture

Fishing for Research off of Los Frailes

Dr. Terry Bradley of University of Rhode Island taking part in the capture effort.

Transporting yellowfin tuna- Specimens are placed in clear plastic bags and placed into a drum filled with water in order to be transported to the Achotines Laboratory

 “Los Frailes” are two small islands sit seven nautical miles of the Azuero peninsula in southwest panama, just beyond sight from the Achotines Laboratory.  Craggy, rocky masses made up of sharp cliffs, there is no vegetation on either island.  Throngs of perching birds rest upon the coastline, appearing to take turns from working the baitballs that are continually preyed upon by schools of hungry pelagic.  The astounding amount of life surrounding the island may a reason why this region has been dubbed the “Tuna Coast,” and undoubtedly a factor in selecting the current site of the Achotines Laboratory.

            Today I was lucky enough to have a chance to collect new broodstock for the Achotines facility. I was lucky enough to share the trip with Dr. Terry Bradley, a distinguished faculty member at the University of Rhode Island Aquaculture and Veterinary science program.   Dr. Paul Olin, of California Sea Grant extension and James Baros a student at University of Miami returned on the morning trip, bringing an ideal sized yellowfin for transport, around 6kg, back to the lab. The fish appeared to be doing quite well in the quarantine tank, so our trip was met with much anticipation.
 In, the captain, and Carlos, the deckhand, operate an approximately 22 foot “panga,” that resembles a traditional artisan skiff with the exception that it has been refitted with a large homemade live well for broodstock fish transport.  As we loaded up the boat and made our way out of the protected breakwater of Achotines Bay, sealife was abound.  Not less than five minutes later the ocean erupted when Humpback whale breached off our port side as we coasted towards the islands that loomed in the distance.  We started our troll only about 200 yards from the southern island.  Two heavily used Penn senators made up our armory with two half-plucked “Japanese” feathers as lures. When Carlos handed Dr. Bradley and I each a rod to hold and wait for a strike, I had a feeling that it wouldn’t take long to get a hook-up.

Less than five minutes into the troll, my rod doubled over and line started screaming from the reel.  After a blistering 50 yard first run, we all knew this wasn’t a football sized tuna.  “Un Wahoo!” Carlos exclaimed as we saw the aqua-turquoise fish flash for the first time.  After a 10-minute fight, we had the fish boatside, what turned out to be a 38 LB, 140 cm beauty!   While we would have liked to bring the fish into the laboratory alive, this specimen was a bit too big for our live well, and was kept as supper for the group and Achotines Staff.  A variety of biological data were taken from the fish and entered into Achotines eternal datalog.

We set out the lines once more and Dr. Bradley battled a nice skipjack before we pulled in lines for the day.  While we saw numerous feeding tuna jump clear out of the water, unfortunately, capturing a live yellowfin was not in the cards for us.   But the rest of the trip was met with great conversation—I was able to talk with Dr. Bradley about his extensive experiences as a King Salmon Farmer in New Zealand, Charter and Commercial fishermen in the Northeast US, and a University Professor. Most impressively, Dr. Bradley has designed a transgenic trout, an alternative to the well-publicized Aquabounty salmon.  As we made our way back to shore we observed two sea turtles mating at the ocean surface, something Dr. Bradley nor I had ever seen.
After a great lunch, the group spent the rest of the afternoon restocking yellowfin larvae into larval rearing tanks as part two of our workshop’s trial experiment. Following the test run, the group made an impromptu trip to the local surfing beach, Venao, which was home to this year’s Billabong surf championship.

IATTC-UMIAMI Tuna Workshop Participants