Lumpfish, Cyclopterus lumpus, a species endemic to the northern Atlantic Ocean, has become the focus of the salmonid cleanerfish industry. Commercial or large-scale research production of lumpfish now occurs in many countries including Norway, UK, Iceland, and Canada. American aquaculture researchers are making steady progress in transferring lumpfish rearing technology from their Canadian and European counterparts to their own facilities to catalyze the use of cleanerfish for Atlantic salmon and steelhead trout ocean farms in the United States, specifically in Maine and New Hampshire.
Since 2019, lumpfish have been reared from egg to adult at the University of New Hampshire’s Coastal Marine Laboratory. In Maine, at the University of Maine’s Center for Cooperative Aquaculture Research and at the United States Department of Agriculture’s National Cold Water Marine Aquaculture Center, lumpfish culture and research also occur. Further, the US Lumpfish Consortium, made up of additional research institutions and aquaculture businesses, is working collectively to address some of the barriers that limit cleanerfish use, in general, and to transfer all known technology to the US aquaculture sector.
An overview of ongoing lumpfish research in the US, with an emphasis on NH-based studies, including a variety of projects focused on lumpfish hatchery needs, using lumpfish in salmonid farms, and wild lumpfish population dynamics, will be presented. These studies are funded by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration’s Saltonstall-Kennedy Program, New Hampshire Agricultural Experimental Station, New Hampshire Sea Grant, Northeastern Regional Aquaculture Center, and the United States Department of Agriculture’s National Institute of Food and Agriculture.