Dauphin Island Sea Lab aquaculture project harvests first fish
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Ashley McDonald grabs a selfie as she and the team from Dauphin Island Sea Lab start to harvest the first fish from the aquaculture project platform.
The redfish were harvested to allow the platform to be moved to shore during hurricane season.
The aquaculture platform was located about 2 miles off the tip of the Fort Morgan peninsula.
By David Rainer
Alabama Department of Conservation and Natural Resources
An aquaculture project funded during former Alabama Sen. Richard Shelby’s tenure in Washington has finally been revived in Gulf of America’s nearshore waters off Alabama.
Last year, a platform and fish pen were erected and moved into place about 2 miles off Fort Morgan to study the feasibility of raising finfish to marketable size along with other species like oysters and seaweed.
A little more than a year ago, marine biologist Ashley McDonald returned to the Dauphin Island Sea Lab to become the Integrated Multitrophic Aquaculture Project Manager. She is leading a team in this effort to provide an additional protein source to the public.
“This project has basically been dead in the water, waiting on permits and agreements,” McDonald said.
The project received a protected species agreement from NOAA (National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration). Permits were also acquired from the Alabama Department of Conservation and Natural Resources’ (ADCNR) State Lands Division, the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers and the U.S. Coast Guard.
“This project is intended for more localized, small-form aquaculture,” McDonald said. “It would be more individually owned and operated. It’s not one of these big, massive aquaculture projects, the idea being that we wanted to incorporate local native species with intrinsic market value for Gulf species locally. We wanted to provide an avenue for smaller commercial harvesters that might be looking into branching out into aquaculture or subsidizing any of their commercial revenue and doing it in a way that it doesn’t feel like it’s competing with commercial harvest.”
McDonald said safeguards will be used to ensure the project is sustainable and environmentally responsible.
“We want to minimize the effect of excessive nutrient pollution that is associated with the much larger farms,” she said. “This comes from wasted feed, incorrect feeding rates and excess nutrients from the fish.”
This idea of small-form aquaculture actually came from an area far removed from the Gulf. A group from Canada developed the idea. A New Hampshire aquaculture operation’s business plan that includes steelhead trout, blue mussels and kelp is the model for the efforts in the Gulf.
“We are using three species that we are growing out,” McDonald said. “We have our finfish, which is red drum. We also have hanging baskets with oysters and macro algae, a seaweed. They are all native species. Their genetic component is local to Mobile Bay, so these are local, homegrown animals.
“The idea for the oysters and seaweed (graceful red weed) is they are going to take up and absorb the particulate organic matter and inorganic matter, like dissolved nitrogen and nutrients. They also become a secondary product for the farmer to take to market. Right now, the seaweed is one we really don’t have a market for. Seaweed farming is new. It’s taking off, but it hasn’t quite found its market yet.”
Since the platform was deployed in the fall of 2025, the team has learned a lot about the environment in the Gulf, its benefits and pitfalls.
“The platform is a 55 feet by 20 feet rectangle with two fish bays and sits in about 33 feet of water,” McDonald said. “The conditions out there are pretty consistent in terms of salinity. It’s pretty much open water salinity out there. The entire footprint is about 3 acres, but that includes the mooring. The mooring lines are the majority of the system. It uses a four-point mooring system to keep it in place against all types of weather conditions because it gets really rough out there, we’re finding.”
Because of a late start, the team had to prepare to move the platform back to shore during hurricane season, which meant the redfish didn’t get to the size they desired.
“Only one of the fish bays is occupied right now with about 3,000 redfish,” McDonald said. “The fish are small this year. We had a lot of delays getting the platform out. We’re harvesting them at about 1 pound, about 14 inches. We really don’t know what our market is yet. What we’re doing this year is off plan because they are small. The original idea was to get them to one kilo, 2.2 pounds, but that didn’t happen.”
With undersized fish, the project is going to distribute these redfish to local markets at no charge in return for information about volume of sales as well as price per pound whole and filleted.
“This will better help us determine how to take them to market next year,” McDonald said.
Kevin Anson, ADCNR’s Marine Resources Division (MRD) Director, said the brood stock of fish used in the aquaculture project was harvested in Alabama waters and transferred to the University of Southern Mississippi’s (USM) Thad Cochran Marine Aquaculture Center to be spawned.
Anson said Marine Resources is supportive of the idea and intent of the project.
“It’s a pilot study to look at current technology and what will work off Alabama in the Gulf,” he said. “We’re trying to see the potential of this aquaculture to see if this could be an additional source of protein for the public.
“As I understand it, the brood stock actually used came off Alabama because they congregate here in bigger schools,” Anson said. “It was easier for them to source the brood stock and transport them to USM to spawn and raise them to a 6-inch size before they were put in the cages. One of the tenets of the program is that if this takes off, the fish used will be locally sourced and native to the Gulf of America.”
Anson and MRD, as well as the researchers, are interested to find out the integrity of the structure and if it will hold up to the wave energy in the Gulf during the time it is deployed.
“We want to make sure the cage structure stays intact, doesn’t sink or break away,” he said. “The mesh material that holds the fish is designed to prevent fouling, and it has some durability to minimize the damage from sharks. The technology comes from the Northeast where conditions are different than here. We would be interested to make sure the material prevents the escape of the fish. That’s what our hope is, and the owners of the structures wouldn’t want to lose fish either.”
As Alabama’s other aquaculture venture in the production of oysters continues to thrive, Anson is optimistic about the finfish opportunity.
“We hope this will show that it will be a viable and profitable means by which these fish can be produced,” he said.
