The striped bass is an excellent aquaculture species. It is adaptable to controlled environments, exhibits rapid growth rates, accepts artificial feeds, has broad physiological tolerances and high market value. Commercial striped bass farming has become a reality in the last three years, due in part to ASI research funded by the NSF SBIR Program. In the firs two years of commercial production, ASI produced over one million pounds of hybrid striped bass, surpassing the entire U.S. commercial fishery harvest for 1987 and 1988. Major commercial start-ups of large-scale striped bass farms are underway in several states at present. The only significant remaining obstacles are the domestication of broodstock (to reduce the dependence on wild-caught adults from seasonal spawning runs), and the development of intensive fingerling culture techniques (to eliminate the need to use the undependable fertilized pond method of producing juveniles). Both of these objectives have been achieved for trout and catfish, and have allowed these industries to flourish in hundreds of locations nationwide. Upon resolution of similar issues for striped bass, there is no reason why striped bass aquaculture cannot grow quire rapidly, to become a third major form of profitable fish culture for the U>S. in the 1990's.
