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Suggested Citation : Rice, M.A. 2007. Pioneering Lobster Aquaculture in Rhode Island. pp. 35-42. In: D.A. Alves (ed.), Aquaculture in Rhode Island: 2007 Yearly Status Report. Rhode Island Coastal Resources Management Council, Wakefield, Rhode Island. (http://www.crmc.ri.gov/aquaculture/aquareport07.pdf)
Pioneering Lobster Aquaculture in Rhode Island
Michael A. Rice University of Rhode Island
One of the pioneering agencies charged with managing Rhode Island’s fisheries resources was the Rhode Island Commission on Inland Fisheries (hereafter the RI Fish Commission or simply ‘the Commission’). The RI Fish Commission was formed as a sister agency of the Commission on Shellfisheries by an act of the General Assembly in 1869 to manage and enhance the state’s various fisheries, including freshwater trout and bass fisheries and the marine fisheries in Narragansett Bay and the coastal salt ponds. The Commission consisted of a minimum of five commissioners appointed by the General Assembly serving three-year terms. There were additional staff members in the employ of the Commission from time to time. The Commission was obliged to provide an annual report to the General Assembly in January. Early work of the
Figure 1 A & 1B. The old and new floating laboratories (house boats) of the Commission of Inland Fisheries at Wickford, R.I. The upper picture represents the house boat reconstructed from an old scow which served the Commission as a laboratory in the summer of 1899. The new house boat is shown in the lower figure, with two of the floats attached. Photos and original caption is from the 1902 32 nd Annual Report of the RI Commission of Inland Fisheries.
Commission chronicled in the annual reports of the Commission included the purchase of trout from the fish hatchery owned by the Rowland G. Hazard family in Carolina, RI for the restocking of lakes and streams around the state, as well as experiments into the reproductive biology and artificial propagation of the steamer clam, Mya arenaria , and the quahog Mercenaria mercenaria. One of the Commission’s key contributions to the science and practice of marine aquaculture was their early experiments to hatch and rear larval lobsters for the purpose of restocking the fisheries of Narragansett Bay.
Aquaculture of lobsters in Rhode Island began in 1898 as a result of the appointment of Dr. Hermon Carey Bumpus, Jr. a professor of biology at Brown University as one of the inland fishery commissioners in 1897. 1 The very next year, Bumpus was appointed as the director of the United States Fisheries Commission (now National Marine Fisheries Service) Laboratory at Woods Hole. The three-way partnership of the Commission, Brown University, and the U.S. Fisheries Commission allowed for input of academic researchers and graduate students and partial federal funding of the project.
Figure 2. Lobster hatchery staff cleaning the canvas rearing bags for culturing lobster larvae. Photo is from the 1905 35th Annual Report of the Commission for Inland Fisheries.
The work on culturing lobster larvae began modestly on a modified barge floating in Mill Cove near Wickford (Figure 1A) during the summer of 1899, which was quickly replaced by a larger barge that provided a greater amount of working space (Figure 1 B). Lobster larvae were held in canvas bags suspended from the floating laboratories (Figure 2), which improved survival greatly over the use of tanks in 1898, but it was quickly realized that the survival of lobster larvae was very low due to their cannibalistic tendencies. The larvae needed to be kept in motion to prevent the larvae from eating themselves, so the staff of the laboratory was
Figure 4. Canvas Bag Rearing chamber for lobsters showing agitator and geared drive mechanism. Photo is from the 1905 35th Annual Report of the RI Commission of Inland Fisheries.
Figure 5. A 1904 photograph of the lobster larval feeding method. Photo is from the 1905 35th Annual Report of the RI Commission of Inland Fisheries.
Figure 6. The dock and lobster hatchery building at the end of Fowler Street in Wickford, RI. The historic postcard photo from ca1910 is from the collection of the author.
A major part of the work on site at the hatchery was performed by the assistant superintendent Ernest S. Barnes beginning in 1901 and continuing after his appointment in 1906 to serve as superintendent of the hatchery. By 1908 the numbers of lobsters being produced at the hatchery were outstripping the size of the facilities, requiring the establishment of a permanent shore-side support laboratory and docks for the work boats supporting the project (Figure 6). Currently, the location of the old lobster hatchery at the end of Fowler Street in Wickford is occupied by the Department of Environmental Management Division of Enforcement to dock their patrol vessels.
The main purpose of the lobster hatchery was to produce stage 4 and stage 5 lobster larvae for release into Narragansett Bay (Figure 7), for the purpose of enhancing the fisheries. As the lobster hatchery program progressed and the operators developed the expertise in rearing lobsters, the number of larvae stocked n Rhode Island waters grew considerably (Figure 8). As the techniques for rearing larvae became routine by 1936, 1.7 million stage IV larvae were being released by the hatchery annually.^4 Adjunct to the larval stocking program research was undertaken beginning 1900 on methods to culture lobsters from egg to adult. The 1900- growing seasons produced encouraging results with lobsters ranging in size from 106 to 159 mm total length, with a mean of 122 mm. While these experiments were exploratory and inconclusive, they did demonstrate the biological feasibility of lobster aquaculture. They showed great variability in growth rates among communally reared lobsters, and that greatest growth rates occurred among lobsters reared at lower densities.^5
Figure 8. The production of larval lobsters in Rhode Island using the technique of floating rearing chambers grew considerably during the first quarter of the 20th Century. Data from table in the 52 nd Annual Report of the RI Commissioners of Inland Fisheries (1922).
As the fortunes of the lobster industry wax and wane, there are perennial expressions of interest in establishing hatcheries similar to the one pioneered right here in Rhode Island. But the nagging problem of clearly demonstrating the efficacy of such projects continues to be an open question. Most recently, Kathleen M. Castro of the University of Rhode Island and co-workers has investigated this problem by stocking artificial and natural reefs with hatchery-reared and wild lobsters. 12 Their finding strongly suggest that hatchery reared lobsters may have behavioral characteristics that subject them to predation at much higher rates than wild juveniles, thereby calling into question the value of larval stocking to restore or enhance capture fisheries. Although it is doubtful that the Wickford Lobster Hatchery or its successor on Martha’s Vineyard ever did very much to enhance lobster populations in Southern New England, their pioneering science and technology development did advance our knowledge about this very economically important fisheries species. Who knows the future? If capture fishery supply of lobsters were short and there were sufficient market demand, the economics of growing lobsters using methods pioneered in the Rhode Island and Massachusetts hatcheries might be borrowed to build a new aquaculture industry at some time.
References and Notes
1 Bumpus, H.C. 1899. 29th Report of the Rhode Island Commission of Inland Fisheries 2 Mead, A.D. 1901. Habits and growth of young lobsters and experiments in lobster culture. 31st Annual Report of the RI Commission of Inland Fisheries; 3 Barnes, E. W. 1906a. Methods of protecting and propagating the lobster, with a brief outline of its natural history. Annu. Rep. R.I. Comm. Inland Fish. 32:120-152; Barnes, E.W. 1906b. The propagation of lobster fry for the purpose of increasing the supply of lobsters in the waters of the state. Methods of artificial propagation and cultivation. R.I. Comm. Inland Fish. Annu. Rep. 36:111-119; Barnes, E.W. 1907. Lobster culture at Rhode Island in 1906. R.I. Comm. Inland Fish., Annu. Rep. 37:88-94. 4 Carlson, F. T. 1955. Evaluation of the artificial propagation of the American lobster with special reference to the Connecticut lobster fishery. Yale Univ. Conservation Program, New Haven. 132 p. 5 Mead, A.D. and L.W. Williams. 1903. Habits and growth of the lobster and experiments in lobster culture. R.I. Commission of Inland Fisheries, Annual Report 33:57–86. 6 Mitchell, Martha. 1993. “Biology” in Encyclopedia Brunoniana. Brown University Library, Providence, RI. 629pp.; Nicosia, F., and K. Lavalli 1999. Homarid lobster hatcheries: Their role in research, management and aquaculture. Marine Fisheries Review 61(2):1-57. 7 Barnes, E. W. 1939. An analysis of the objectives of lobster rearing and problems of reinvigorating the lobster industry. In Special report of the development of conservation relative to the feasibility and cost of propagation of lobsters by the Commonwealth of Massachusetts, Appendix A, p. 10-32. Mass. House Doc. 2051, State Library, Boston, Mass. 8 Hughes, J.T. , R. A. Shleser, and G. Tchobanoglous. 1974. A rearing tank for lobster larvae and other aquatic species. Progressive Fish Culturist 36:129–132. 9 Syslo, M. 1986. Getting the “bugs” out. Massachusetts Wildlife 36(3):4–10. 10 Division of Marine Fisheries annual report for 1962–1963. Commonwealth Mass., Dep. Nat. Resour., Div. Mar. Fish., Annu. Rep. 500-10-63-355:17–28 (1963). 11 Syslo, Michael. (1997) Personal Communication, Oak Bluffs, MA. 12 Castro, K.M, J.S. Cobb, R.A. Wahl, and J. Catena. 2001. Habitat addition and stock enhancement for American lobsters, Homarus americanus. Marine and Freshwater Research 52:1253–1261.
