Known in Hawaiʻi as white pāpio (in the juvenile stage) or ulua aukea (in the adult stage), the giant trevally (Caranx ignobilis) is a prized catch among recreational and subsistence fishers and holds a place of cultural significance in the local fishing community. When exploring the use of public aquariums as sources of viable marine fish eggs, Oceanic Institute found early success culturing C. ignobilis eggs collected at Maui Ocean Center. After producing an initial cohort of hatchery-reared juveniles, eager would-be stock enhancers seized the opportunity to grow some of those fish to a size suitable for release, obtained the required permitting, and conducted a preliminary tag and recapture effort using minimal available resources. Months after releasing 208 juvenile C. ignobilis into waters around Oahu and Maui, fishers had voluntarily reported 42 recaptures (Table 1). Twenty percent recaptured is an excellent result, especially without a public education campaign and relying wholly on voluntary reports from fishers. The longest-term recapture reported was 548 days (18 months) after release, and that fish had more than doubled in length and grew over an order of magnitude in weight (Table 2). Encouraged by how well this bootstrapped effort was received among the fishing community, Hawaiʻi’s Division of Aquatic Resources is initiating a Sport Fish Restoration project to explore aquaculture-based marine fisheries stock enhancement in Hawaii using C. ignobilis as a case study.
At the time of this abstract’s submission, the Sport Fish Restoration project is about to start. This project’s four objectives are as follows:
The authors will report on this project’s first quarter progress at the annual Aquaculture America conference in 2026.