They grow fast, have lots of offspring, and die young. Most people like to eat them and there’s more commercial effort to harvest them than ever before. The aquaculture program at University of Miami’s Rosenstiel School is growing them in tanks and aims to teach other fish farmers how to do it.
Dolphin fish, also known as mahi mahi, is the latest experimental research species at UM’s aquaculture lab on Virginia Key. The colorful pelagics join cobia, blackfin tuna, Florida pompano and goggle eyes swimming around in large fiberglass tanks.
“They are iconic yet elusive,” professor Dan Benetti, director of the university’s aquaculture program, said of dolphin. “There’s got to be somebody interested in raising these fish commercially.”
Growing dolphin in captivity is nothing new; scientists, including Benetti, have been at it on and off for about 30 years. Unlike some tuna and grouper-snapper species, mahis are not currently overfished, so there has been no urgent push to develop techniques to farm them. But that could change with increased consumer demand and fishing pressure. So last year, Benetti decided to “revisit” the species, looking for ways to raise them profitably and sustainably.
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