Marine Institute research breeds new life into lobster stocks

Under the ‘AquaReg’ programme that began over four years ago, the project team, coordinated by Alan Drumm of the Marine Institute, have come up with an innovative way to increase the cost effectiveness of producing juvenile lobsters with little or no environmental impact.   The project, which is still in its pilot phase in Ireland, originally focused on using Irish and Norwegian expertise to design a cost efficient method of producing juvenile lobsters in Galicia, where over-fishing in the region has led to a significant decline in lobster stocks.  “The traditional method of producing juvenile lobsters using land-based systems where they have to be fed individually has always been labour-intensive and expensive,” Drumm said. Instead, the project team is using individual sea cages suspended in a food rich environment, such as a mussel farm, where lobsters can feed naturally between mussel lines without any further human intervention.   Trials in Galicia in Spain and in Ireland have proven extremely successful. Aside from the cost effectiveness of this technique, it also allows the juvenile lobsters to grow to a relatively large size with minimal human contact. Feeding on natural plankton provides them with a more balanced diet and.