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South Brunswick plans flounder hatchery
Craig Holt
A group of southeastern N.C. fishermen and a state representative, concerned about declining numbers of flounder, have decided to take active measures to solve the problem. They’re arranging funding to build a flounder hatchery at a Brunswick County high school.
Tim Barefoot, a licensed-but-inactive commercial fisherman, started the project along with a state representative and a high-school teacher at South Brunswick High School. “I was introduced to (state representative) Bonner Stiller (R-Brunswick) by David “Crockett” Long,” Barefoot said. “Bonner said he could speed up the process and arranged for us to receive $18,000 through Speaker of the House Richard Morgan.”
Barefoot also has submitted a request for a grant from N.C. Sea Grant, a governmental agency that funds fisheries research. “The jury’s still out on that,” Barefoot said, “but the Brunswick County Board of Education said they’d match (Morgan’s) donation. And Bonner's help has been crucial; he’s shaved 5 years off the project.”
Not only that, arrangements were made for the hatchery to be built and maintained by students at South Brunswick High School. “Principal Bob Wilkerson gave us an open-door policy to work with his students,” Barefoot said.
Barefoot said he hopes the South Brunswick High hatchery will receive funds through the RSFL, which has a clause that says funds can be used to support saltwater fisheries research and development - including building hatcheries. “We’d like to get a full-blown state hatchery built at some point,” Barefoot said. “But that’d be through the (state) university system.”
Japanese southern flounder hatcheries already are producing fish, and Barefoot said he has gotten help from Harry Daniels, an N.C. State University professor who specializes in southern flounder aquaculture.
North Carolina already is among national leaders in rearing hybrid (white bass/stripers) bass.
Barefoot said South Brunswick High School teacher Barry Beau, an aquaculture instructor, will head the project. “Barry is a nationally known aquaculture instructor,” Barefoot said. “We want to get the kids excited about aquaculture, and I think with the hatchery it can be done. Barry’s kind of like Coach Mike Krzyzewski (Duke basketball coach) in that he motivates his students. We want to show people they don’t have to go to Duke or UNC (to get a good-paying job), that they can go into aquaculture. We want to show these high school kids they can have an option to farm fish.”
The first hatchery structure probably will resemble a hot house for growing plants. The only requirement will be to maintain a constant water temperature, 61 degrees Fahrenheit, because that’s the preferred temperature for spawning flounder. The physical dimensions of the hatchery are 50x50 (2500 square feet). “We already have permission to release 25,000 southern flounder (in N.C. waters),” Barefoot said. “We’ll use only N.C. wild flounder as brood stock. Right now we’re in the process of collecting fish.” Once enough juvenile flounders are raised in the hatchery, he said releases would be 2,000 flounder here, 2,000 flounder there. “The real key to being successful will be having places for juvenile flounder to live. And that mean creation of oyster beds,” he said.
Barefoot said many types of juvenile saltwater gamefish grow up at oyster beds, including flounder, red drum and spotted seatrout. “We also have a request in to build an oyster hatchery,” he said. "I see where Sen. Marc Basnight (the N.C. Senate leader) is pushing for state funds to start an oyster hatchery. So maybe we've already sparked something."
Oysters, besides providing the best habitat for many juvenile saltwater fish species, protect the environment by removing pollutants from water through their natural filtration system. “We don’t want to throw the oysters out as a put-and-take industry where we’d let ‘knockers’ shovel them up,” he said. “We went to create natural reefs that will be off limits to dredging and would be a home for growing red drum, flounder and other gamefish.”
Barefoot said oyster reefs - of which North Carolina has very few - produce “spats,” juvenile oysters. “That’d be a bonus, too, because juvenile oysters reproduce over and over,” he said.
Preston Pate Jr., director of the N.C. Division of Marine Fisheries, said he knew little about the southern flounder hatchery plan, but he had some concerns about the project. “I don’t know (a lot about) what they’re doing,” Pate said. “Certainly some issues need to be considered regarding a hatchery, mainly the output (of fish) and the purpose. “If they’re building a hatchery to support aquaculture, that’s one thing; if it’s to enhance the wild stock, that’s another.”
Pate said he wasn’t worried so much about reproducing flounder in an artificial setting as he was about “the responsibility”. He said he would be reluctant to vote for expenditure of public (RSFL funds) that might be subtracted from other projects, unless the money would be “well spent”.
“I think very little is known about the survival rate (of released (hatchery) flounder,” he said. “It’s probably going to be dependent upon the stage (of growth, or size) of the flounder when they’re released. It’s known the smaller the fish when it’s released the smaller the chance of survival.
“Again, I don’t have any doubts they can raise flounder large enough to survive in the wild, but how much money is it going to take to raise flounder that large?”
Barefoot said hatchery-reared flounder have a dark pigmentation on their underbellies that identifies them. “That (dark color) is permanent, so when somebody catches one, they’ll know it,” he said. “This way we don’t have to tag (the flounder). We’ve already got several guys from around the Pamlico Sound with commercial (fishing) licenses who will apply to Sea Grant next year to track the females. We hope to get scientific proof these fish migrate out (of inshore waters) in the fall and ball up around Hatteras and Ocracoke (inlets).”
Barefoot said he was optimistic releasing southern flounder into N.C. inshore waters, plus building more oyster reefs, would make a difference in eventual harvests. “What I want is five years from now someone to drag in a 10-pound flounder, look at its bottom side and see that dark color and say, ‘Oh my God! I’ve caught one of those hatchery flounder.’ ”
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