The integration of aquaculture and wild fisheries is becoming increasingly recognised as a tool for enhancing fishery productivity (Taylor et al, 2017). Re-stocking and stock enhancement following recruitment failure could lead to faster fishery recoveries, and also be used to supplement natural recruitment to provide a more consistent and higher yield harvest from year to year. Saucer scallops are fast-growing and occur in commercial quantities across Queensland and Western Australia. Natural scallop populations are known to be highly variable due to; differences in larval advection; settlement patterns; and survival. Natural recoveries from recruitment failures in Western Australia can take between three to five years, creating high uncertainty to fishers and downstream industries. Stock enhancement could potentially be achieved by seeding suitable nursery scallop habitats in fisheries with post-settlement, competent spat, which have been cultured through the vulnerable early stages of their life cycle.

This investment with robust identification systems for monitoring different cohorts of enhanced and wild scallop stock will develop hatchery and nursery protocols for consistent production of scallop spat. If successful, the project will develop strategies and methodologies for scallop spat deployment and stock enhancement.