Clean Seas Tuna today announced that a bluefin tuna breeding program in Europe has successfully replicated techniques it pioneered in Australia.
The company says research consortium Allotuna reported productive spawning of Atlantic bluefin tuna, using the same strategy Clean Seas of Port Lincoln, Australia, used earlier this year with Southern bluefin tuna.
Allotuna's international research team, which includes members of Clean Seas' advisory panel, collected more than 10 million eggs from sea cage broodstock last weekend after hormone induction trials on a tuna farm in Italy. The spawned eggs have since been transferred to a commercial hatchery in Bari, Italy, where the larvae will feed and grow. Eggs have also been transferred to hatcheries in France, Crete, Israel, Malta and Spain for further research.
Clean Seas Chairman Hagen Stehr says the development in Europe was an endorsement of his company's ongoing research.
"It proves that Clean Seas Tuna is right on target with its Southern bluefin tuna lifecycle project and that it is a matter of when, not if, commercialization starts," he says.
Clean Seas also announced yesterday that it has 4,100 metric tons of kingfish (mulloway) in the water and ready for sale. Stehr adds that by the end of next year, the company could have 10,000 metric tons of kingfish for sale.
