The Mote project (Stock enhancement and production of the Grey Mullet fry–a sustainable choice; REG/FED/2009/021/-575) which has an overall duration of 48 months, aims to a) to evaluate and optimize stock enhancement of hatchery produced fry as a sustainable approach for mullet production in various water bodies around the Mediterranean countries; b) to advance and improve production of high quality mullet juveniles as an alternative source for stock enhancement and aquaculture production. The overall aim of the proposed project is to provide solutions for grey mullet production in aquaculture and inland fisheries through fingerling production and stock enhancement activities.
Production of mullet in aquaculture and in inland fisheries at present are solely "captured-based fry" operations that utilize dwindling natural stocks and becomes more and more restricted. Therefore the future of mullet production and sustaining these fisheries is definitely dependent on shifting from harvesting wild fry to stock to supply of "hatchery-based fry" for stocking. The Coded Wire Tag (CWT) (Fig. 1) is a well-established tagging technology that has filled a critical void in fisheries – a benign tagging method with high information content that can be used to mark large numbers of small juvenile fish, without compromising fish behavior, health or survival. Coded Wire Tags are non-transmitting and must be extracted and viewed under a low-powered microscope to retrieve the code (Fig. 2), although their presence can be externally detected with electronic detectors (Fig. 3 ). The present findings indicated that Because of their small size, they can be used in species or life stages that are too small for other tagging methods (i.e. there is no other tag with high information content that can be used to identify multiple batches of small fish in typical stocking events, which require multiple (often many dozens) different tag codes. Since their invention, CWTs have become the most extensively used tags for fisheries management. It is important for fish to be stocked at a time when they are able to adapt to the new environment quickly and thus learn how to forage for natural foods with minimal delay. Determining the appropriate size of fish for release requires knowledge of their potential impacts on local on fish and the ecosystem in general, along with a cost-benefit analysis
This work is a part of the USAED project outputs, " Stock enhancement and production of the Grey Mullet fry – a sustainable choice ", funded by a grant from the Middle East regional cooperation (MERC) program, U.S. Agency for International Development, Bureau for the Middle East. (Project Number: M33-038; Award Number: SIS70017GR33038).