Thread: 8000 Cobia to be released off Mississippi Coast...

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8,000 cobia to be released off MS coast
Dec. 8, 2011, 3:31 a.m. CST
WLOX-TV

BILOXI, Miss. (AP) — Mississippi's Department of Marine Resources this week is releasing 8,000 cobia at two offshore fishing reefs.

WLOX television reports (http://bit.ly/syyRkk) that the release, set to begin Thursday at artificial reefs off Ship Island, is the result of a public-private partnership between the DMR and Aqua Green, a commercial fish farm in Stone County.

The fish should reach legal size for offshore fishermen to catch in about three years.

Aqua Green received the cobia in early October, when they were about two inches long.

Ten of the giant saltwater tanks inside Aqua Green's warehouse are filled with Cobia, also known as Lemonfish. The commercial aqua culture facility in Stone County is raising thousands of fish for the DMR. A re-circulating system keeps the salt water clean.

"They're a fast growing fish. They can reach up to 10 to 12 pounds in one year," said biologist Chuck Weirich, who is overseeing this round-the-clock cobia raising.

"Aqua culture is a challenge. It's 24-7. You can't leave on Friday at five and show back up at eight o'clock in the morning on Monday. It's a bit like a hospital," said Weirich.

"When you do any kind of a stocking program, you're increasing the number of fish in the water. So, obviously it gives more opportunities for our recreational fishermen to catch Cobia, which is a highly prized species on the coast," said Michael Brainard, with the Mississippi Department of Marine Resources.

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Information from: WLOX-TV, http://www.wlox.com

That's a pretty cool deal there!

Aquaculture and hatchery fish have been an issue with other species like salmon because of disease issues and pollution, but that was for commercial scale establishments, not for hatchery fish reinforcing local stocks. I know Texas did it with redfish, and even flounder, but the real thing that helped was ending commercial netting.

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