Portable Full-Recirculation Incubator for Salmon Incubation/Restoration

"The broader/commercial impact of this Small Business Innovation Research (SBIR) Phase 1 project is in creating a new salmon incubation system to restore the wild salmon population of natural streams. Food security continues to escalate as a global crisis, especially for healthy whole foods. The proposed technology impacts both wild salmon (affecting both commercial and subsistence economies) and farmed salmon by offering tools for wild salmon restoration and advanced economic/environmentally sound aquaculture practices in salmon farms, eliminating toxic chemical use and dramatically less freshwater use. This project brings a new, self-contained, portable, full-recirculation incubation system to rear salmon eggs to the emergent fry stage of salmon development without the use of toxic chemicals and decreasing the amount of freshwater used from millions to hundreds of gallons. Further, the societal value of community involvement (STEM) in reversing extinction trends in wild salmon is immeasurable. Wild salmon requires embryonic development with water from their natal stream. Hence, it is now recognized that the conventional central multi-million-dollar hatchery facilities are no longer suitable as they cannot accomplish this. This SBIR Phase 1 project intends to develop an incubation technology that will preserve genetic integrity, use water from the wild salmon’s native watershed, eliminate toxic chemical use, afford the ability to track restoration progress and avoid million-dollar hatchery capital costs. It will create a new salmon egg/alevin incubator by re-engineering and combining two proven salmon incubation systems together in a compact portable size. Among other features, the system will be designed for tight temperature control, having almost no vibration, and the ability to withstand major earthquakes. The system is expected to increase the survival of young fry several-fold; using water from their indigenous source, otolith mark them with a natural mark and restock the fry back into their wild stream of origin. This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria."