Spiny lobsters (Jasus edwardsii) do well in sea-cages

Increasing global demand, high market value and concerns about the sustainability of wild fisheries have generated a strong interest in the development of aquaculture techniques for spiny lobsters. In New Zealand, large, naturally occurring settlement of puerulus stage spiny lobsters (Jasus edwardsii) on mussel ropes has generated considerable interest in the potential of growing the lobsters through to market size. New Zealand has an annual surplus, in excess of 5000 t, of blue mussels (Mytilus galloprovincialis), which represent a waste product from the Greenshell™ mussel (Perna canaliculus) industry. Previous studies have shown that fresh mussels provide an excellent diet for spiny lobsters (James and Tong 1997). Legislation in 1996 enabled potential lobster farmers to harvest commercial quantities of puerulus stage lobsters with 40,000 pueruli, or 30 kg green weight, being exchanged for one ton of term transferable quota (TTQ; Jeffs 2003). As a result several land-based farms were established but the high infrastructure and operating costs, including transportation, storage and opening, of land-based facilities and high costs associated with feeding fresh mussel resulted in land-based lobster growout being uneconomical (Jeffs and Hooker 2000). These early land-based efforts showed that both sea-cage culture and the development of a cost-effective formulated diet would be essential to improve the economic prospect of commercial J. edwardsii farming in New Zealand.