After six years of planning, Cooke Aquaculture’s salmon hatchery in Swanger Cove, St. Alban’s, Newfoundland, is now in operation.
The CAD 7.5-million, 38,000-square-foot facility uses recirculation technology, which means 99.3 percent of the water gets reused. The hatchery’s filtration system clear solids and gases from the water before it gets pumped back into the tanks.
Juvenile Atlantic salmon started arriving at the hatchery this fall, transported from the Daniel’s Harbour hatchery which incubates and hatches eggs before sending fish on to St. Alban’s.
The hatchery has 16 fish tanks but only 10 are operational so far. They contain 1.5 million, 20- to 30-gram Atlantic salmon, with about 100,000 fish in each tank. As they grow they some will be moved into the other tanks. The hatchery will be able to produce up to 3 million 100-gram smolts per year.
