New Volunteers at the King Harbor Ocean Enhancement Foundation's White Seabass Project

[Sea Hag]

A new lot of volunteers were trained this morning at the King Harbor Ocean Enhancement Foundation's White Seabass Project in Redondo Beach.

Veteran volunteer Fred Casstevans provided an orientation and tour of the facility for 6 new volunteers. Each volunteer will be assigned on day of each month to spend approximately two hours with the tiny white seabass, refilling the automatic feeders that feed them, checking the fish and the water temperature, and cleaning the two large pools that are their homes for several months before they are released into the Santa Monica Bay.

Orientation speech...



Scrub the sides of the pools,



Then vacuum... here's Kenny trying out the vacuum cleaner with trainer Fred, watching. "Hey, dude...? You missed a spot right there..."

After their duties have been completed, the volunteer fills in a log book with their findings, including water temperature, and recording and measuring any fish found dead in the pool. Today we had one fish to record, about 6 ½ inches long. Casstevens examined the fish. “Probably wasn’t eating well,” he noted. “That’s about their size when they arrived.”




Poor baby...!


Casstevans said their current brood, which arrived in early July from the hatchery in Carlsbad, were between 5 and 6 inches when they arrived. The goal is to raise them to about 10 inches, at which point they will be released. Most of the fish are currently between around 7 to 8 inches, although watching them in the tank there were some significantly larger and smaller. Gene Morris, another veteran volunteer with the program told us that was not unusual. “Some of the fish are a lot more aggressive when it comes to feeding time.”

One pool contains about 2000 fish. The other pool is empty right now. “We are hoping to get another lot in the next couple of months,” Casstevans told us.

All of the volunteers were very excited about the opportunity to help, and listened attentively as Fred and Gene took us through the finer points of operating the vacuum pumps and trouble shooting the automatic feeders, should they become clogged.

The facility operates on a fairly tight budget, and most of the work and maintenance of the pools and caring for the fish is done by volunteers. “Its great to be able to give something back to this program,” noted fellow volunteer, Kenny Mac. “Anything we can do on the side of conservation for our fisheries is a good thing!”

The Project’s hatchery in Carlsbad is looking into hatching and growing other varieties of sportfish, including halibut and sheephead.