Bivalve hatcheries are essential as a source of larvae and seed/spat. Several hatcheries in the USA have reported experiencing larval slow growth or high mortality events due to unknown causes. With a limited number of shellfish hatcheries supplying seed to a growing seafood industry and restoration efforts, it is important to develop management protocols to minimize these issues.
To address larval crashes on the Atlantic coast of the USA, the Bivalve Hatchery Health Consortium (BHHC) was formed. Using a collaborative, stakeholder-driven, comprehensive, reiterative approach, the BHHC developed a process for: (1) stakeholder enrollment; (2) collection of information on hatchery operations; and (3) collection of samples and metadata for good and bad production runs. Information is collected following a process that ensures hatchery privacy and confidentiality, and data is anonymized and aggregated before dissemination.
Enrollment of 37 hatcheries in the BHHC demonstrated that hatchery crashes were widespread in 2024 (55% of 33 larval production runs), severely impacting larval production. Hatcheries reported poor larval performance, including slow growth and delayed development, low survival numbers from spawning to seed, or crashes with total loss of production runs. In this presentation, we will provide a broad overview on BHHC hatcheries, including type of hatchery (public, research, commercial), species produced, technology used, general production methods, production levels, and a description of the issues experienced in 2024 - 2025. This information is being used to identify which management practices and hatchery conditions may be associated with low larval performance and develop protocols to minimize losses.
This research is funded by the USDA Northeast Regional Aquaculture Center Award 123476-Z5220211