A sustainable and essential initiative
Since its inception in 2002, this project has demonstrated that lobster seeding can have a significant impact on lobster populations and that this activity can be economically viable.
The hatchery is located at the New Brunswick Aquarium and Marine Centre in Shippagan, NB. Research has enabled the development of highly efficient hatchery techniques for producing large quantities of lobster larvae.
A fishermen’s initiative
Seeding is a fisherman initiative to enhance the lobster population of their fishing area. Berried females are collected by them, with a special scientific permit ( egg bearing females are prohibited on board with their normal fishing licence conditions) and brought to the hatchery where they will be kept in holding tanks at the optimal temperature required to delay de release of larvae until they are needed.
Maximizing larval survival
The survival rate of a lobster larvae in the wild is less then 1%. They grow through 4 larval stages in the water column where they’re subject to a lot of predations before settling to the bottom.
They are brought to stage 4 in hatchery to be then released to the bottom of the ocean (in the same areas the berried females were collected).
The larvae are released at sea from a fishing boat. They are placed in a tank equipped with a hose that leads directly to the seabed. Using gravity, the larvae are released directly onto the marine substrate, reducing their exposure to predators and significantly increasing their chances of survival.
A measurable impact on lobster populations
The advantage of this technique, instead of a surface release, is that stage 4 is the first benthic stage for lobsters and the pipe method allows them to be released directly on the seafloor where they can immediately seek refuge and hide instead of swimming from the surface in the water column and be vulnerable to predation before settling.
More than 8,5 million lobsters have been seeded in twenty areas of Atlantic Canada since the beginning of the project as of 2024.
