United Kingdom Lobster Hatcheries

[Nicaonline]

The Scottish Seabird Centre wants to set up a lobster hatchery and lobster research facility in North Berwick to produce juveniles for stocking the local fishery.  Charlie Marshall, fund raiser and development manager at the Scottish Seabird Centre, said: “We plan to get the hen lobsters from local fishermen and keep them in tanks until the eggs hatch.  We would then return the hens and keep the fry in tanks.”  The estimated cost of setting up the hatchery is between $360 and $540 thousand.  Once the center is up and running, it will be another five to seven years before fishermen begin catching the released lobsters.  Tom Brock, chief executive of the Seabird Centre, said: “A lot of work and fundraising needs to be done to turn the idea into a reality.”
 
Marshall and Brock plan to visit the UK’s National Lobster Hatchery in Padstow, England, which is a successful commercial venture.  It releases around 12,000 late-juvenile lobsters along the Cornish coastline every year.  The UK’s only other lobster hatchery—Europe’s largest—is in the Orkney Islands, off the northeast coast of Scotland.  It releases 65,000 juvenile lobsters annually.
 
Source: News.Scotsman.com.  Plan hatched to help lobsters claw their way back to Forth.  Fay Winter.  September 15, 2008.