Contact:
Dolores Leonard
dolores.leonard@unh.edu
603.862.3685

September 25, 2003

OOA recently celebrated two major milestones in its offshore fish culture operations: The third SeaStation cage was successfully incorporated into the system, and 30,000 cod fingerlings set to inhabit the cage were smoothly transferred from nursery pens into their new environs.

The newly deployed cage, which is bi-conical in shape and measures about 80 ft in diameter and 50 ft in depth, is similar in design and function to the two original cages, currently housing haddock and halibut. However, it is considerably larger (3000 m3 compared with 600m3), allowing ample room for the many cod fingerlings that now occupy it. Delivered as individual components, the cage was partially constructed on shore then submerged and trailed out to the grid where divers made the finishing touches and attached it to the mooring.

Researchers relocated the young cod to the cage in mid-September using a fish transport vessel brought down from Eastport, ME. Equipped with a large pumping system and vast live-well capacity below the deck, researchers and ship's crew siphoned the fingerlings from the transitional pens, carried them to the site in the ship's holding area, then reversed the process and pumped the fish into the cage.

With three active cages now in place, and a fourth under consideration for use by an industry partner, researchers are now focusing on deploying a new automated feed buoy scheduled to be implemented in the late fall of 2003.