Clean Seas presses on with tuna farm Gavin Lower From: The Australian December 02, 2009 12:00AM CAPITALISING on world-leading science, South Australian tuna magnate Hagen Stehr is to commercially farm southern bluefin tuna.
Mr Stehr, whose successful spawning of the fish in captivity was named Time Magazine's second best invention this year, said his company, Clean Seas Tuna, was preparing to spawn 25,000 of the prized fish and planned to replace, within five years, Australia's entire 23 per cent quota cut (1250 tonnes).
Australia's tuna quota was cut from 5265 tonnes to 4015 tonnes in October, after a meeting of the Commission for the Conservation of Southern Bluefin Tuna. The cut was part of a 20 per cent worldwide reduction in the catch, amid fears stocks could collapse.
Last month, Time declared Clean Seas's achievement of getting the notoriously fussy southern bluefin tuna to spawn in tanks at its facility on the Eyre Peninsula was second only to NASA's Ares 1 rocket for world's best invention.
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Mr Stehr said the company's broodstock, with individual specimens weighing 200kg, were being prepared to spawn again.
"The cycle at this stage is looking extremely well," he said.
"It looks a lot lot better than it looked in past years and the fish are in immaculate condition."
Mr Stehr said when spawned fish were about a month old they were moved from the land-based tanks into sea cages where they were grown for consumption.
"The payback time is just coming now," he said.
Marine biologist Chris Bridges, of Dusseldorf University, said it was "highly realistic" that Clean Seas would achieve the same production levels as its project partner, Kinki University in Japan, which is propogating northern bluefin tuna.
Kinki University transferred last month 190,000 aquaculture-bred northern bluefin tuna juveniles from its hatchery into sea cages off Japan.
"While Clean Seas is targeting lower production initially, the sophistication of its unique land-based facility . . . should allow greater control over accelerating its production trajectory," Professor Bridges said.
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