Background: Stock Enhancement and Sea Ranching Homepage

    Several recent scientific symposia on stock enhancement and sea ranching have emphasized the need to bring fisheries researchers and mangers of hatchery- release programs together to help focus more effort to advance the pace of new knowledge in this field.  Because fisheries around the world now face unprecedented levels of exploitation, it is urgent that we understand the potential of stock enhancement and sea ranching to help supplement and replenish fishery yields and wild stocks in order to help meet the increasing demand for seafood.  Given predicted levels of population growth, and the plateau reached in the 1990's in the annual yield of marine capture fisheries, it is important to make more rapid progress in this field. As knowledge increases about the effectiveness of stock enhancement and sea ranching, this web site will help to make that knowledge more available to those interested in whether and how the emerging science and technology can be applied.

    Our companion web site, the World Aquaculture Society Working Group on Stock Enhancement, provides additional information about research and development in this field of science, and offers guidelines for the wise use of stock-enhancement technology.

    If you have questions or input that would be appropriate for this topic, consider joining our Discussion Forum at this web site.

    The editors of this homepage have been actively involved in stock enhancement and sea ranching research for over a decade, and have organized and conducted various sypmosia and meetings focused on this field.  Terje Svåsand is the head of the Division of Marine Enhancement at the Institute of Marine Research in Bergen, Norway. Dr. Svåsand was a principal author on several of the first (and current) scientific papers in this field about the effectiveness of marine stock enhancement (hatchery releases to supplement or replenish organisms that reproduce in marine environments). He is also a founding member of the International Working Group on Stock Enhancement, which is now sponsored by the World Aquaculture Society.

    Ken Leber directs the Center for Fisheries Enhancement at Mote Marine Laboratory in Florida, USA. He has spent over a decade on research and development of marine stock enhancement in Hawaii, at The Oceanic Institute, and in Florida, at Mote since 1996.  As an original founder and chairman of the WAS Working Group on Stock Enhancement, Dr. Leber has been working since 1991 networking scientists in this field, and planning and convening symposia on marine stock enhancement.

    Erlend Moksness is the Head of the Institute of Marine Research's Flødevigen Marine Research Station, in Arendal, Norway, and has organized and published major symposia on stock enhancement and sea ranching. He has also published more then 65 peer reviewed papers in International Journals of which several are in this field. At present he is the Editor of the Internet Homepage EFAN (European Fish Ageing Network).

Shuichi Kitada is an Associate Professor at Tokyo University of Fisheries, Japan whose area of research include evaluation of stocking impacts and statistical analyses for ecological supporting. He has spent for two decades on research and planning for stock enhancement at the head office of Japan Sea-Farming Association since 1975.

Ian Cowx is currently Director of the University of Hull International Fisheries Institute, in the UK. He is actively working in the filed of inland fisheries management especially stock enhancement strategies for freshwater fisheries, river and lake rehabilitation for fish, and impact of river regulation on fisheries. He is the Chairman of the EIFAC working Party on the stocking and introductions of fish and has published a number of articles on this subject including an edited book (I.G. Cowx 1998. Stocking and Introduction of Fish. Fishing News Books, Blackwell Science, Oxford).