Farming Pink Snapper

Introduction

There has been considerable debate and confusion over the taxonomic status of snapper (Paulin 1990). Southern and northern hemisphere snapper stocks were once considered to be two separate species, Chrysophrys auratus and Pagrus major. However, they are now regarded as the one species Pagrus auratus, with independent and reproductively isolated populations in Japan and Australasia (Paulin 1990).

In Western Australia, snapper occur in waters from the Dampier Archipelago in the north to the South Australian border in the south (Figure 1) (Moran pers com). Major concentrations of adult fish occur off Shark Bay, the Abrolhos Islands and in Cockburn Sound. Juveniles are found in sheltered coastal embayments and estuaries such as Wilson Inlet (Lenanton pers com). In the Shark Bay region several separate stocks occur, with the inner bay populations being genetically distinct from the fish in the offshore areas (Johnson, Creagh and Moran 1986).

A significant managed commercial fishery exists in the Shark Bay offshore region, where annual catches have varied between 400 and 1300 tonnes (Williams et al 1993), depending upon market demand. Total state production in 1992/93 was 810 tonnes, supplied to both local and overseas markets. Each year, catches from Shark Bay during the peak fishing season in May - July, cause seasonal gluts in the local market depressing the market price.

Snapper are found in warm temperate to sub tropical waters off Australia, China, Indonesia, Japan, New Zealand, Philippines and Taiwan (Paulin 1990).

In Japan, where snapper are known as red sea bream, the species has been reared experimentally since the beginning of this century and successfully commercially farmed since 1965. In 1988, Japan produced 45,000 tonnes of red sea bream from aquaculture, this figure is more than three times the catch of this species from wild fisheries in that country.

New Zealand has commenced research and development programs for aquaculture of snapper. Although the species has not yet been farmed commercially in Australia, it has recently been cultivated experimentally in WA, SA and NSW. In NSW, the experiments have progressed snapper through to growout since 1992.