The Apalachicola Bay System Initiative Research hatchery enables researchers at the FSUCML and partners have animals available for research and provides animals from local broodstock for restoration.

Restoration experiments are central to ABSI's work in identifying the locations in Apalachicola Bay that will have the highest chance of rebuilding local oyster populations. Our research hatchery was constructed to produce oyster spat (juveniles) on shell, which can be placed on our restoration experiments to see whether this approach can ‘kick-start’ oyster habitat recovery. The hatchery cares for all stages of oysters, including adults to use as broodstock, developing their larvae through the entire larval period, metamorphosing larvae into spat, and growing out spat into animals for the field. The hatchery team in charge of operations includes FSU graduate students Emily Fuqua and Morgan Hawkins and hatchery technicians, Landen Millender, Louis Lockhart, Jordan Elliott, and Haley Crawford. Click on the images below to learn about the hatchery process.