Fish Population Restoration [Memorial University Newfoundland, MUN]

Dr. Wroblewski has been conducting research on a new method of marine fish population restoration, termed "enhancement of reproductive potential" or ERP (Wroblewski, et al., 1996; Wroblewski, et al., 1999; Wroblewski and Hiscock, 2002). This entails trapping late juvenile and young adult fish from the wild, increasing their growth and fecundity by feeding them in sea pens, and then returning the fish to their natural habitat to spawn. Hatchery based enhancement programs have met with criticism regarding genetic changes in cultured populations, and the fitness of released fish. Such criticisms do not apply to the ERP method. There is little or no impact on the genetic variability of the wild population since all fish, randomly collected from the wild, are released after captivity.