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yellowfin tuna

A new tuna acquaculture industry in R.I.?

Schooling yellowfin tuna.

Schooling yellowfin tuna.

From Robert Whitcomb’s “Digital Diary,’’ in GoLocal24.com

All hail the University of Rhode Island’s planned

, whose mission is to create a sustainable yellowfin tuna aquaculture industry. The project includes a 125,000-gallon tank (which I’ve visited) at URI’s Graduate School of Oceanography, on the shore in Narragansett. The tank now has about a dozen tuna swimming in it. Do fish suffer from claustrophobia?

This is still entirely a research program, focused on studying tuna reproduction. But the idea is to eventually create an important industry, with perhaps some of it based in our region. Presumably other finfish species will be studied and, ultimately, farmed because of URI research. This is the sort of project in which the Ocean State should have a strong comparative advantage. URI continues to do great things.

Raising tuna at URI

These yellowfin tuna are schooling in the ocean. Other yellowfin tuna are schooling in a giant tank at URI's School of Oceanography. It's exciting to watch.

These yellowfin tuna are schooling in the ocean. Other yellowfin tuna are schooling in a giant tank at URI's School of Oceanography. It's exciting to watch.

Expanded from an item in Robert Whitcomb's Dec. 31 '"Digital Diary'' column in GoLocal24.com

Thank God for scallops. These shellfish have been a boon for New England fishermen– an offset to the tendency of fishermen to fish to near-extinction finfish, such as as cod, off New England to meet the world’s rapidly growing appetite for seafood.

But there may soon be big reinforcements for New England's fishing sector and they start on land.  Experts in a facility on the campus of the University of Rhode Island School of Oceanography are raising yellowfin tuna in an exciting and potentially very lucrative aquaculture experiment. I recently had a tour of the URI Bay Campus facility, which has a giant tank where this is taking place. To see the tuna school in the tank is, well, neat.

If this experiment works, it could mean a lot of money for URI and for businesses, based, let us hope, in New England. Most of the aquaculture in southern New England has been with shellfish; there's been some salmon aquaculture in Maine. It’s nice to see more diversification.