Great Bay Aquaculture based in Portsmouth New Hampshire has been growing fin fish for nine years, in conjunction with the University of New Hampshire.
Last year the head of Great Bay, George Nardi, started to establish a grow out site in Maine in Frenchman Bay, and in June 2008 he stocked it with 100,00 Atlantic cod juveniles having applied to the authorities for a lease on the site of a former salmon farm together with lobster and muissel fisherman James West, according to a report in The Working Waterfront.
This May the company expanded the lease from 1.866 acres to 35.66 acres and in June this year they began to stock the cages with more cod juveniles.
Mr Nardi said the company had begun to stock a new batch of cod juveniles and would sort the original batch. Cod at the site was hatched at Great Bay from native brood stock, and then sent to the nursery at the Center for Cooperative Aquaculture Research in Taunton to grow to net pen size.
The new lease allows a total of 10 cages at the site. One of these, Nardi says, may be an Aquapod, an intriguing spherical net pen that looks like it was designed by Buckminster Fuller.
The first group of fish will be ready for harvesting in September. At the beginning, while the harvest is smaller, the company will tap the live fish market in Boston and New York City, says the The Working Waterfront report.
Cod Farming Returns to Maine
US - "The best case scenario," says George Nardi of his Atlantic cod aquaculture venture in Frenchman Bay, "is pretty simple: We'll be able to grow, harvest and sell fish for more money than it costs us."
Cod Aquaculture in Maine US - A cod aquaculture venture in Maine is expecting to see its first fish ready for harvest in September.
