20 MARCH 2022 • WORLD AQUACULTURE • WWW.WA S .ORG release mortality. Snook are a popular estuarine sportfish in Florida but are vulnerable to mass mortality from red tide and cold-kill events. Stock enhancement has been considered as a management option for this species but recapture methodology limits assessment of snook stocking efforts. An alternate approach to assess short-term post-release survival would benefit adaptive management of common snook by informing the most appropriate release locations, times and procedures to support responsible, strategic stock enhancement. We established an approach that couples the flexibility of release designs for hatchery-reared fishes stocked into estuarine and marine systems with passive integrated transponder (PIT) tag monitoring technology to inform release strategies and improve performance of enhancement efforts (Schloesser et al. in press). The approach was demonstrated in two experiments for which weekly post-release apparent survival was estimated for hatcheryreared fish released into an open, estuarine system. Snook were produced in recirculating aquaculture systems at the Mote Aquaculture Research Park. Broodstock were originally caught from local, wild populations and induced to spawn using photothermal conditioning on two occasions to support a fall and spring release experiments. For each experiment, ~40 individuals were released at each PIT tag antenna array during each of three replicate subreleases that occurred a week apart (Fig. 1). The antenna array was comprised of three individual 1.5 m × 0.6 m antennas placed Introduction Special sessions at the 2020 and 2021 Aquaculture America conferences were developed to highlight the important role aquaculture has come to play in the conservation of threatened and endangered species, and species of concern. The environment for raising aquatic species for commercial production can be significantly different from the conditions needed for rearing conservation species. Therefore, research is needed to evaluate the variable rearing requirements for these species. The researchers herein provide presentations that illustrate how aquaculture tools have been used in conservation to provide refugia, facilitate reproduction and enable supplementation of organisms into the wild. A Novel Approach to Estimate Post-release Survival for Estuarine Fishes Ryan Schloesser, Ken Leber, Nathan Brennan and Paula Caldentey Stock enhancement in estuarine and marine systems of the United States has been limited by the lack of an efficient process to assess the impact of stocking activities. Quantifying stocking success is particularly challenging when recapture rates of released individuals are low or require logistically difficult or extensive effort. As a result, robust monitoring and informed adaptive management remain important issues for stocking programs (Trushenski et al. 2015). The Fisheries Ecology and Enhancement program at Mote Marine Laboratory in Sarasota, FL, has been using the common snook Centropomis undecimalis as a model species for developing an approach to more rapidly estimate postConservation Aquaculture: A Special Sessions Synopsis Compiled by Ann Gannam FIGURE 1. Release of common snook as part of stock enhancement research in estuaries of southwest Florida (Photo: B. Horsley). FIGURE 2. The PIT tag antenna array used to monitor ~100 m of shoreline habitats in tidal creeks (Photo: Ryan Schloesser).
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