SeaGrant North Carolina News and Dan Dinicola stated, NOAA Sea Grant recently announced over $14 million…
SeaGrant North Carolina News and Dan Dinicola stated, NOAA Sea Grant recently announced over $14 million in federal funding across four strategic areas for improving U.S. aquaculture – with roughly $1.4 million awarded to StriperHub. Led by North Carolina Sea Grant and NC State University, StriperHub is a multi-partner and multi-regional collaborative project to support the development of a sustainable striped bass aquaculture industry in the United States.
“We’re extremely excited,” says Eric Herbst, North Carolina Sea Grant’s Coastal Aquaculture Specialist. “I think it speaks to the real potential for commercialization of the striped bass aquaculture industry in the U.S.”
NC State’s Russell Borski, StriperHub’s southeast regional coordinator, says taste is part of what makes striped bass a prized species for aquaculture — and a rarity.
“A candidate species has a premium price, high consumer demand, and adapts well to localized production,” Borski says. “Among white-fleshed marine fishes in the U.S., there aren’t many of these. But striped bass meets all the criteria.”
NC State’s Ben Reading is the director of the Pamlico Aquaculture Field Laboratory (PAFL), where a team has selectively bred striped bass for over 30 years to improve growth rates, stress tolerance, disease resistance, and to optimize feed efficiency. The team believes these advantages, in addition to their ability to spawn the fish naturally and without hormones, have primed striped bass for commercial success.
As of 2022, StiperHub has produced about 14.25 million striped bass fry, when fish are first capable of feeding themselves, and 851,000 striped bass fingerlings, when the fish have developed scales and working fins. To date, StriperHub has supported bringing roughly 89,000 pounds of farm-raised striped bass to North Carolina markets.
Additionally, the StriperHub team will continue to develop education and training programs, clarify regulatory permitting and licensing procedures, and promote comprehensive outreach and visibility among striped bass producers and consumers, including releasing a revised edition of the industry standard manual: Culture of Striped Bass: 21st Century.
In October, the StriperHub team gave a presentation at the 2022 North Carolina Seafood Festival in Morehead City where Chef Randy Sweat prepared NC farm-raised striped bass with verde salsa and Chef Charles Park made his blackened rockfish recipe, featuring a local name for striped bass. Audience response was positive.
