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Raising Game Fish Fingerlings to Repopulate Gulf Waters

Juvenile Snook
MOTE MARINE LABORATORY
Juvenile Snook

The red tide bloom that’s persisted along the gulf coast for almost a year now, has killed hundreds of thousands of fish -- if not millions -- as well as large marine animals, like sea turtles, dolphins, and manatees. Conservation organizations are sounding the alarm about the populations of game fish like snook and redfish, which have been wiped out. Some fishing guides are reportedly looking at changing their business models to deep sea fishing, because of concerns it will take years for the game fish populations to rebound.

There’s a new partnership in place between the nonprofit Coastal Conservation Association Florida, the Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission, and Mote Marine Laboratory, to raise baby fish, called fingerlings, and have them ready to release into gulf waters once the red tide has subsided, hopefully in the spring, although that’s far from certain at this point. We’re joined by Brian Gorski, executive director of Coastal Conservation Association Florida, to find out how this partnership is going to work, and what it takes to raise thousands of baby fish.

Copyright 2018 WGCU

Julie Glenn is the host of Gulf Coast Live. She has been working in southwest Florida as a freelance writer since 2007, most recently as a regular columnist for the Naples Daily News. She began her broadcasting career in 1993 as a reporter/anchor/producer for a local CBS affiliate in Quincy, Illinois. After also working for the NBC affiliate, she decided to move to Parma, Italy where she earned her Master’s degree in communication from the University of Gastronomic Sciences. Her undergraduate degree in Mass Communication is from the University of Missouri at Kansas City.
Mike Kiniry is producer of Gulf Coast Live, and co-creator and host of the WGCU podcast Three Song Stories: Biography Through Music. He first joined the WGCU team in the summer of 2003 as an intern while studying Communication at Florida Gulf Coast University.