css in the australian

http://www.theaustralian.com.au/news/nation/up-there-in-stratosphere-with-nasa/story-e6frg6nf-1225800945533


Up there in stratosphere with NASA

TEN years ago, Hagen Stehr's tuna fishing mates thought he was crazy.

After seeing fishing quotas around the world becoming tougher and tougher, the Port Lincoln fisherman and one-time member of the French Foreign Legion set his Clean Seas company on a path to discover the secret to breeding the fickle, but highly prized and very valuable, southern bluefin tuna in captivity.

Now his breakthrough has been recognised by Time magazine as the second best invention of this year, beaten only by NASA with its Ares rocket, with which the agency plans to take humans to the moon, and later take them to Mars and other destinations.

"People thought I was a crazy man," Mr Stehr said. "The mere thought was preposterous to many in our industry."



But his belief in the future of aquaculture paid off earlier this year when tuna in a tank at Clean Seas' Arno Bay facility in South Australia, 110km northeast of Port Lincoln, began spawning.

Mr Stehr, the German-born founder and major shareholder of Clean Seas, said scientists who watched the event, recorded on camera, had tears in their eyes.

Time hailed the spawning, at 8.47am on March 12, as "fish history".

"By coaxing the notoriously fussy southern bluefin tuna to breed in landlocked tanks, Clean Seas may finally have given the future of the bluefin aquaculture legs (or at least a tail)," the magazine wrote.

Mr Stehr said he and the company were "stoked" with the recognition, which came out of the blue.

"If you want to run second to any bastard, I mean NASA would be the one," said Mr Stehr. "What makes us happy, even our own industry, my own peers didn't believe it would be possible. You'd be surprised how many people in the industry and science said it can't be done."

Mr Stehr described tuna as a "very touchy creature".

"You can look at them wrong and they fall over," he said yesterday.

But Mr Hagen stayed true to his dream to crack the tuna life cycle, taking his inspiration from his hero, American World War II general George Patton.

"I like his philosophy," he said. "Go forwards or backwards, don't dig in. Never give up."

He said the company had spent "easily" $40 million on the "propagation issue", but the rewards, in a world of reduced tuna catch quotas, could be huge.

Last month Australia's southern bluefin tuna quota was cut by 25 per cent over two years.

The decision by the Commission for the Conservation of Southern Bluefin Tuna was part of a global reduction in the catch by 20 per cent amid fears that stocks could collapse.

Clean Seas is in the process of constructing a new building at Arno Bay to house "monstrous" tanks that replicate wild conditions to further the commercialisation of its tuna breeding program.

Staff are also preparing and conditioning their tuna broodstock for further spawning.