Refining Juvenile Grow Out Techniques for a Sea Urchin Hatchery System

Dimishing urchin stocks and harvests in the Gulf of Maine and poor recruitment has made the option of establishing sea urchin hatcheries attractive for aquaculture and possible stock enhancement. A hatchery to produce juvenile sea urchins for grow out and out planting to aquaculture lease sites has been established. The purpose of this project is to improve the efficiency of production and refine methods for juvenile grow out using suspended cages. A second focus of this project is to compare the effectiveness of immediate out planting of hatchery reared urchins versus growing them to a larger size before releasing them the following winter when the threat of predators is reduced.