SNAPPER BONANZA

The Future Has Arrived

Editor's Note: The recovery of red snapper in the Gulf of Mexico and possibly worldwide may occur much quicker than previously predicted, thanks to a small group of scientists at the Claude Peteet Mariculture Center in Gulf Shores, Alabama. New scientific breakthroughs in artificially spawning snapper, producing microscopic-sized food for baby snapper, training snapper to eat commercially-prepared food, creating an artificial habitat that speeds up the reproduction cycle of the red snapper and constructing a new salt-water pipeline from the Gulf of Mexico to the Mariculture Center may result in the Center's producing 100,000 red snapper per year for restocking and research within the next five years.

"Last year the Center produced 2,000 red snapper, and this year we expect to produce 20,000 red snapper," Vernon Minton, chief of Marine Resources for Alabama's Department of Conservation, says. The federal government helped the Center build a pipeline from the Gulf of Mexico to the facility, approximately 5-miles away. "With this new unlimited supply of salt water, we expect our production of red snapper to jump by tenfold this year," Minton explains. "In the past, we've had to truck salt water to the Center to keep a very-limited supply of salt water.

"We've already proven that we can spawn and grow red snapper in captivity and restock them successfully in the wild. A good percentage of these snapper will stay on the reefs where they're stocked. Researchers now can grow red snapper quicker to stock more red snapper in the Gulf of Mexico and to learn more about the life history of the stocked red snapper. Hopefully scientists can help recover red snapper worldwide through systematic restocking of reefs with nonexistent or dangerously low red snapper populations. The next step is to refine our techniques and increase our capacity so that the Mariculture Center can grow red snapper quickly to stock more red snapper in the Gulf of Mexico faster and to learn more about the life history of the red snapper we stock. One day we may be able to help speed up the recovery of the red snapper in the Gulf of Mexico and worldwide through systematic restocking of reefs where the red snapper populations are nonexistent or dangerously low."

To learn more about this program at the Marine Resources Division, e-mail Minton at rvminton@gulftel.com, and you also can visit www.dcnr.state.al.us/mr/cpmc.htm on the Web.

TOMORROW: THE PROBLEM WITH RAISING CAPTIVE RED SNAPPER:
PRODUCING FOOD FOR THE FRY