December Newsletter
01 Hands on youth experiences and a new interactive education space.
This season saw the start of our 'Be a marine biologist for a day' experience; a three hour session designed to give young people hands on experience of what it's like to work in marine biology.
Our marine biologists helped out with hatchery tasks such as larvae collection and counting, water testing using our dropper kits and handling of adult lobsters to identify those to be released. After this it was time to head down to the rockpools to release adult and juvenile lobsters into the wild, and identify some of the local wildlife of the rocky shore.
Our young marine biologists loved exploring the rockpools and finding new creatures to discover - fish, crabs, anemones and even some sea hares! They also had the opportunity to add some of their findings to the display tank in the newly refurbished education cabin for all the visitors to see!
Our new interactive education space has been a great success with visitors - encouraging neurodiverse learners to engage with our important work and explore the world of lobsters. This new space - including 'feely boxes', lift-the-flap questions, video content and a giant lobster jigsaw - enabled our visitors to gain a fuller understanding of the role that lobsters play in Scotland's economy, as well as their place in history and cultural importance worldwide. Come by and experience it yourself when we reopen in Spring 2023!
02 Trips and visits
We had a busy season with visits from students, partners and fellow lobster enthusiasts!
Back in June we had the team from iasg Restaurant visit us from the Kimpton Blythswood Square Hotel in Glasgow. They have been raising money for us through their seafood restaurant donation scheme and wanted to come and see our work first hand. We had a great time showing them around the hatchery and getting their help to v-notch and release some of our adult lobsters.
We also had visits from other lobster hatcheries to share ideas and experience. Berwickshire Marine Reserve came to see our work and gain an insight into the aquaculture systems we use here. We also gave them 100 of our juvenile lobsters that had been hatched and reared in North Berwick to go to their project down the coast - good luck little lobsters!
One of our final visits of the year was Stirling University marine students who came to learn about lobster lifecycles and conservation. We started at the Seabird Centre for a talk on the work we do and its importance, followed by a tour of the hatchery and behind the scenes hen room as well as taking a look around our new education centre. There was just enough time to take some trays of juvenile lobsters and adult females down to the beach to release them into the wild.
03 Recent funding
As ever our organisation relies on funding from grants and donations from the public. This year we are extremely grateful to:
The Stella Moffat Trust
The Scottish Fishermans Trust The Plum
iasg
North Berwick Trust Naturesave and
The People's Postcode Lottery
Without your donations our essential work in marine conservation, community engagement and education would not be possible - thank you!
04 European Lobster Centre of Excellence
In April the Firth of Forth Lobster Hatchery once again joined the European Lobster Centre of Excellence for our 6 th meeting, involving a record attendance of hatcheries, academics, manufacturers, and other lobster innovators! Directors Jane and Jake spent 2 nights down in Padstow, attending a day of talks and a tour of the National Lobster Hatchery. The networking was invaluable for the Firth of Forth Lobster Hatchery, comparing rearing techniques, learning how to fine tune our systems and collaborating on potential research. We continue to strive for excellence in our hatchery, both through rearing practises and educational output, and experiences such as these prove invaluable for our team to continue developing our charity. Thank you once again to the ELCE and the National Lobster Hatchery for hosting such a productive event!
05 Directors Comments
We approached 2022 with a lot of enthusiasm, thanks much to the support of funders who stuck with us through the hard times of COVID-19. In 2021, we were very much trying to find our feet again with low staff numbers and limited production (although improved production!). As the 2022 season neared closer, we made the appointments of Eleri Williams as Hatchery Technician and Sophie Mackaness as Education Outreach Officer. Both proved to be fantastic members bringing new perspectives on public engagement, education materials as well as rearing practises.
Throughout this season and going forward, we would like to share our expertise in aquaculture, marine conservation and education to a wider audience, but particularly to undergraduate students. Hands on, practical experience in these sectors is expensive and hard to come by for undergraduates, so we are very keen to share this knowledge and experience to make these young people more employable. This season we had three students join us along with Eleri who also did her dissertation research with us looking at the temperature tolerance of juvenile lobsters. We also hosted students from Stirling University who are studying Aquaculture. As we look to expand our outreach further into the Lothians, we are always keen to hear from schools, community groups or societies that want to take part in educational sessions.
Our hatchery season was one of success I am pleased to report! We released over three hundred adult female lobsters back to sea, protected with a v-notch, after they had cast all their larvae. From their larvae we released over 10,000 juveniles back to the Firth of Forth. We also sent over 500 down to Aberystwyth University for habitat preference research. We also continued our knowledge sharing with other prospective hatcheries in Fife, Yorkshire and Kent. We see this as an important role we play as one of the oldest and most established hatcheries in the UK.
I would like to say a huge thank you to all our volunteers this season, and to anyone who attended a session or visited the hatchery. We are so lucky to have such engaging and kind visitors who make our jobs so much easier! Your donations never go unnoticed, and we are forever grateful for the support of our community and visitors. Finally I would like to say another huge thank you to our funders, for which none of this would be possible without! As a small charity we don’t have huge resources and your support allows us to continue our important conservation and education outreach work.
Have a great festive period and we look forward to welcoming visitors back to the hatchery in spring 2023!
Jake
