The spiky, unlikely heroes of fisheries?

Published on Saturday 19 January 2008 19:14

SCIENTISTS at a laboratory in the West Highlands are conducting a £30,000 experiment which they hope will result in the commercial farming of sea urchins.

Urchins are a delicacy in parts of France, where they are regarded as aphrodisiacs, and in Japan, where they command top prices at sushi restaurants.

Although the females can lay millions of eggs, few of the fragile offspring survive.

Researchers at Viking Fish Farms at Ardtoe Marine Laboratories, near Acharacle in Inverness-shire, are trying to breed urchins under controlled conditions.

Dr Tim Atack, the firm's managing director, said as well as fetching top prices, the urchins could be used to help clean the marine environment around fish cages.

Sea urchins will eat waste particles of fish food, certain types of seaweed and soluble waste around the cages.

Environmental campaigners have been critical of pollution and algae from waste food at fish farms.

Atack said: "Out of the waste coming out of the cages you produce two potential cash crops, and it's good for the environment too.

"We will use some of the seaweed to feed the sea urchins and some for other purposes.

"Basically, we are hoping to produce enough small sea urchins to make the project viable on a commercial scale."

The researchers are concentrating on breeding two species of urchin, paracentrotus lividus and echinus esculentus, and two species of seaweed, laminaria and alaria, which the urchins prefer to eat.

Viking Fish Farms are working with Sutherland-based Loch Duart Salmon on the project, which has received 15,000 of backing from local enterprise company HIE Lochaber.

The Scottish Association for Marine Science has been involved with the early stages of the research project.