May 4, 2011

 

US to have fishing hatchery from Hubbs-SeaWorld Research Institute

 

 

Hubbs-SeaWorld Research Institute wants to place a huge fish hatchery and marine research facility in Pensacola.

 

The San Diego-headquartered nonprofit recently contacted Pensacola Mayor Ashton Hayward about putting a hatchery in Pensacola, which would be the institute's fourth facility.

 

Hayward recently flew to San Diego to tour Hubbs-SeaWorld's facilities and meet with company officials. The institute hopes to find a site, design a facility and break ground in Pensacola within a year, said Hubbs-SeaWorld's President Don Kent.

 

"This is huge. This could be just what we have been looking for," said Hayward, who met with Kent and scientists at the institute. "This is truly what we need to become more high profile on the educational side."

 

The institute is looking at two possible locations on, or near, Pensacola's downtown waterfront, including an empty warehouse at Commendencia Slip along Pensacola Bay and the old Main Street Wastewater Treatment Plant site.

 

Hubbs currently has two facilities in Southern California and one in Melbourne.

 

"The idea of this replenishment programme is to grow fish to a juvenile size to help restock the depleted populations off the coast," Kent said. "We have been doing this at our California operation for about 20 years now."

 

The reason Hubbs-SeaWorld wants to come to Pensacola can be credited to the Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission (FWC).

 

About three years ago, the FWC stepped up its fish hatcheries programme and has established a goal of having up to 14 hatcheries across the state within the next 10-15 years to replenish depleted fish populations, said Brett Boston, executive director of the Wildlife Foundation of Florida, the nonprofit leading the FWC's fish hatchery programme.

 

There are five such hatcheries in Florida; a Pensacola facility would be the sixth.

 

A Pensacola hatchery would serve the western Panhandle. The FWC proposes that eventually another hatchery be built near Panama City to serve the eastern Panhandle, Boston said.

 

The institute could bring in University of West Florida students to help with research and hatchery functions, Kent said.

 

While the FWC's hatcheries programme is focused on recreational fishing, the Hubbs-SeaWorld facility would be designed to be self-supporting by selling fish to commercial fish farmers. The institute is also eligible to receive state and federal grant funding.

 

The facility could have the capacity to produce as many as 20 million fish a year, grown to be genetically indistinguishable from the most common breeds of wild fish in local waters, such as red snapper.

 

"The facility would create jobs, boost the food stock production industry, and replenish the stock for recreational anglers," Boston said. "So, it is a commercial operation with a recreational by-product."

 

Kent said the facility could create as many as 80 jobs. He plans to visit Pensacola within the next month to look at the possible sites and meet with officials.

 

"I think Florida is prime to jump into this and show the rest of the nation how it can be done properly," he said.