Source: Eyre Peninsula Tribune
The company is encouraged that the first element of the strategy has been achieved with spawning commencing some 50 days earlier than last year’s spawn start at Clean Seas’ specialized hatchery at Arno Bay.
The earlier start is with a regular number of small but viable spawns in the past month, allowing the instigation of the all-important new season’s larval rearing trials at the hatchery.
Clean Seas aims to continue spawning the tuna for as long as possible to enable our team of experts to further progress the Company’s understanding of tuna juvenile production.
The ultimate target strategy for the new spawn is to advance timing and provide older, more resilient fingerlings for marine grow-out by the time ocean water temperatures begin to drop in the Autumn.
Clean Seas is encouraged by the earlier spawning activity and awaits expectantly the crucial next stages towards achieving further progress overall with its SBT breeding program.
The Company will provide investor updates on the current SBT spawning and larval rearing season with the next key stages being the cessation of the broodstock spawning and the transfer of fingerlings for controlled grow-out trials to either sea cages or holding tanks.
As previously reported, Clean Seas achieved a world “first†in March 2011 with the successful transfer of 149 juvenile SBT into a sea cage from the Arno Bay breeding facility.
The SBT juveniles eventually succumbed to the cold winter ocean temperatures, which in turn led to the Company’s strategy of bringing forward the current spawning season and targeting the ocean transfer of the SBT fingerlings during warmer water temperatures.