February 17, 2000

Sea Bream Dream to Spawn New Industry

1. News from Media Conference

2. Background: Business Potential of Sea Bream Technology

3. Background: Science of Sea Bream Spawning

BALTIMORE, MD--In a city already known for its Chesapeake Bay cuisine, scientists at the University of Maryland Biotechnology Institute today offered Baltimore a taste of a new seafood industry for the United States.

Gilthead sea bream, a fish imported daily from Europe at $5 to $10 per pound to many "upscale" U.S. restaurants, now has been spawned in an indoor aquaculture system of "instant" seawater, announced Yonathan Zohar, director of UMBI's Center of Marine Biotechnology (COMB). The first commercial production of sea bream in this country will likely begin in Baltimore, he said today at a media conference at COMB.

"This is the first time a marine fish of such high quality has been spawned in a completely closed, indoor system," comments Zohar. This achievement resulted from research based on 20 years of experience in managing sea bream's reproductive hormones, he says. The researchers also conducted painstaking trials to mimic the exact conditions of its native spawning waters, he adds.

Zohar's team conducts sea bream research in an old converted warehouse in Fells Point, just a splash from Baltimore Harbor. The contained system of filtered and recycled water, however, discharges no waste into the harbor or bay. The resulting novel aquaculture technology is very suitable for commercial warehouse space in Baltimore's empowerment zones, says Zohar. "It has been my dream to produce sea bream juveniles here on a year round basis and to have a city-based industry using a closed, non-polluting system to raise fish."

The breakthrough of spawning sea bream in a closed aquaculture system is "an incredible science story," says David Harvey, aquaculture analyst with the U.S. Department of Agriculture's Economic Research Service. In contrast, he notes, conventional aquaculture of fish in net pens in open waters or in earthen ponds is becoming more and more difficult in the United States as a result of increased state and federal regulations and site approval processes. While Greece, Spain, Italy, Israel and other nations have been raising sea bream in ocean net pens for many years, Harvey points out. "Sea bream grown in indoor tanks eliminates a definite set of things to worry about. The Chesapeake Bay is so heavily used it would be tough to get approval to set up such structures," he says.

James McVey, aquaculture coordinator for the National Sea Grant College Program, National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), comments, "The spawning of sea bream is exactly the kind of development U.S. aquaculture needs. And Baltimore is perfectly situated to prime urban aquaculture of marine species." He notes that producing sea bream will add a white-fleshed marine species with name recognition to the market. "I think the economic potential is very high. The beauty of sea bream is that we are not starting with a wild species. It has been domesticated for years in other countries with genetic improvement in captivity." Indeed, European cooks have long considered sea bream a delicacy. It has been described as having "a succulent, meaty flavor, similar to pompano or red snapper."

In related news, the University of Maryland's Maryland Industrial Partnerships (MIPS), anticipating the sea bream spawning and other aquaculture innovations at COMB, recently awarded a $110,000 grant to Offspring Marine Inc., to scale sea bream production up to "industrial capacity," says Burt D'Luggoff, company president. "This fish is ideal for closed systems. But until COMB's work, this fish was very finicky. We will grow them up to a half-gram, past the most vulnerable stage. Then aquaculture growers can finish the fish to adult, market sizes. They need a very profitable fish like sea bream, improved by selection and research. We are very excited."

Potential sea bream production for U.S. markets would also help fill a growing gap between seafood supplies and demand, says Ed Rhodes, aquaculture coordinator for National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration Fisheries. "Seafood accounts for approximately $6 billion of the U.S. trade deficit. It is the largest category of natural products, if you exclude petroleum." Rhodes adds that the almost $1 billion U.S. aquaculture industry may be "flattening out" because of a slowdown in marine fish aquaculture. Meanwhile worldwide aquaculture of marine species has not slowed, he says.

One out of every four fish eaten in the world is raised by aquaculture. There has been a 10 percent annual growth rate in the world aquaculture for several years in sequence, according to the Food and Agriculture Organization, United Nations. The FAO estimates that, between 2015 and 2025, aquaculture will have to produce one out of every two fish consumed in the world, assuming the marine fisheries will stay the same and human population will grow at current rates.

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BACKGROUND: Business Potential of Sea Bream Technology

BALTIMORE, Md.--Scientists of the University of Maryland Biotechnology's Center of Marine Biotechnology (COMB) have created a novel aquaculture technology that is very suitable for commercial warehouse space in Baltimore's empowerment zones.

Indoor aqua-farming can be used, for the first time, to produce a highly profitable fish-gilthead sea bream. COMB's pilot project studies revealed how to spawn and raise the tasty fish from the Mediterranean, using re-circulated "instant" seawater. Now the pilot project can be scaled up in non-polluting, indoor aqua-farms in warehouses.

The technology requires only basic training. Yet, it can create numerous jobs in otherwise under-employed regions. Producing the first indoor-raised sea bream in the United States will add to the economic development in Baltimore's inner city through sales, processing, transporting, and serving of sea bream.

Other U.S. markets for aqua-farmed fish (Economic Research Service, USDA, 1999) include () Atlantic salmon, $620 million sales, at an average of $2.40 lb; and () Catfish, $298 million to consumers, at $0.74 lb; and $425 million to processors.

Meanwhile, U.S. restaurants and other buyers pay more than $5.00 lb. to buy imported sea bream on ice, according to the "Gofresh" on-line global marketing service. The Black Olive restaurant in Baltimore buys fresh sea bream from Spain and Israel for $5.50 lb at the Maryland Wholesale Seafood Market in Jessup, Md. One prospective scale-up firm expects immediate sales of $10 million a year from an initial plant.

In many countries including the United States, fish are grown in earthen ponds or in floating net pens in the ocean. Because of environmental concerns and the need to operate in public waterways, open aquaculture is limited by government regulations. Closed, indoor aqua-farming has emerged as an environmentally friendly alternative.

Other advantages of closed system aqua-farming in the city include: () Water conditions are tailored to the fish, ensuring the best growth rates and spawning. () The water is kept disease-free, unlike outside net pens or aquaculture ponds. () The clean water prevents off-flavors or contaminants collecting in the fish. () The fish can be raised in high densities and numbers. () Marketing potential is greater by locating aqua-farms in highly populated areas. () Sea bream or other fish can be produced year-round.

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BACKGROUND: Science of Sea Bream Spawned Indoors

BALTIMORE, Md.-- The sea bream hatchings represent the first imported marine species of a high commercial value to be grown, bred and spawned in captivity in the United States.

The research began when COMB researchers imported half-gram fry from Spain in 1997, the first live sea bream to pass through U.S. Customs.

For three years, the researchers conducted intensive studies of the fish in re-circulated, manufactured seawater at COMB's Aquaculture Research Center (ARC). Spawning success broke a major biological bottleneck in their research and completed the life cycle of the sea bream in test tanks at ARC. Their achievement consists of two parts.

First, the researchers determined exact combinations of environmental conditions--including varying salinity, temperature, and light periods--that mimic native spawning waters of sea bream. Second, the researchers designed ways to trigger sea bream's reproductive hormones properly,

In the wild, sea bream are fairly scarce, migratory fish with the opposite habits of salmon. Whereas salmon live in the ocean and migrate into rivers for spawning, sea bream live in coastal waters and lagoons in the Mediterranean Sea and Atlantic Ocean. They migrate to the open ocean to spawn.

Of paramount importance is that the ARC facility gives research scientists full control of water conditions. Artificial seawater is mixed, then filtered and monitored in each tank. A central computer controls chillers and heaters in each tank. Ozonation disinfects the water. Day-lengths are also computer controlled to simulate the seasons.

The researchers compared the hormones of the sea bream at ARC to wild ones from their spawning waters. They learned that, unlike the wild ones, the captive fish hormones were being attacked and degraded by the fish's own enzymes.

They pinpointing specific protein sites on the hormone that were attacked by the enzymes, then applied protein engineering to change the hormones enough to avoid enzyme degradation.

The COMB scientists then designed a tiny pellet (two millimeters wide) impregnated with the engineered hormone. When placed under the skin of spawning fish, the pellet, made of biodegradable material, releases the hormone slowly. It allows the sea bream to spawn over a period of several months. In the offspring, there is no residue of the pellet or the engineered hormone.

Eggs of sea bream are almost invisible to the naked eye (one millimeter). New hatchlings are about three 3 mm or smaller than a pencil eraser. The baby fish are transparent, showing internal organs including a beating heart, liver and spinal cord. The jaw, eyes and tail are in constant motion. The larvae eat a steady diet of algae and microscopic animals from water dripped steadily into nursery tanks at ARC.

It takes about 12 months for the fish to become market size, about one and half pounds.

In order to time a sort of crop rotation of marketable fish, the researchers have also learned to manipulate water and light conditions for spawning in one tank of fish at a time. In this way, sea bream can be spawned year round and, months later, there is a running sequence of fish harvests ready for market.