Australian aquaculture company Clean Seas Tuna has announced early progress with its previously announced strategy of bringing forward spawning from the company’s southern bluefin tuna (SBT) broodstock.

Spawning has commenced significantly earlier than last year’s spawn start at Clean Seas’ specialised hatchery at Arno Bay on the Spencer Gulf, South Australia. The earlier start is with a regular number of small but viable spawns in the past month, allowing the instigation of the new season’s larval rearing trials at the hatchery.

The company aims to continue spawning the tuna for as long as possible to enable its team of experts to further progress the company’s understanding of tuna juvenile production. The ultimate target for the new spawn is to advance timing and provide older, more resilient fingerlings for marine grow-out by the time ocean water temperatures begin to drop in the autumn.

Clean Seas achieved a world “first” in March 2011 with the successful transfer of 149 juvenile SBT into a sea cage from the Arno Bay breeding facility. The SBT juveniles eventually succumbed to the cold winter ocean temperatures, which in turn led to the Company’s strategy of bringing forward the current spawning season and targeting the ocean transfer of the SBT fingerlings during warmer water temperatures.