Driveline provides lobster van to hatchery

Driveline GB Ltd., based in St Austell have very generously provided Padstow based charity The National Lobster Hatchery with a Citroen van, so that it can continue delivering its marine conservation, research and educational activities to Cornwall and the Isles of Scilly. Richard Jacobs and Mark Kirby established Driveline in 1994 and the company is now one of the main vehicle rental and logistics companies operating in Cornwall. They are regular supporters of Cornish charities and have recently opened a new depot in Plymouth.

Richard Jacobs said “Both I and my Co Director Mark are extremely proud to be able to contribute in some way to the sterling work undertaken by our partners at the National Lobster Hatchery. In the very fragile world in which we live, we have always striven to build and develop our business with both sustainability and a high ethical code in mind. Given these criteria, we feel that this new partnership further ratifies this business ethos. We look forward to supporting this prestigious project in any further way that we can and we are extremely proud to affiliate our well established Cornish brand, as we have with many other charitable organisations over the years, with such a worthwhile cause”.

General Manager of the National Lobster Hatchery, Dom Boothroyd had this to say: “Last year the charity tripled its production and released over 32,000 juvenile lobsters around our coastline. We have spent the winter and spring months installing extra capacity into the hatchery and are now in the position where we can significantly increase our lobster production. We hope to release 40,000 juveniles next season and aim to increase this to over 100,000 juveniles a year in just a few years. This anticipated increase in production has meant that we had to look at the potential of getting a vehicle to transport our releasing gear (and baby lobsters) around the county. We looked at buying a vehicle and shortly realised that we couldn’t actually afford one. Around this time Richard and Mark from Driveline came to visit and offered us a van for free. We are delighted and so grateful for the support that Driveline provides, it makes a huge difference to a small charity with big ideas! It will make an important contribution to our work over the coming years”.

Three Men in More Than One Boat

Do you recognise these characters?  We had the pleasure of meeting Dara O’Briain, Griff Rhys Jones and Rory McGrath when they came to film for the Three Men in More Than One Boat series.  Having taken the photos I couldn’t find where I’d saved them anyway but have since found them, so it’s three years late but well worth publishing.  It’s not often you see a picture of Griff and Dara trying to move juvenile lobsters with a holey bent tea spoon!  We’re very technical here at the hatchery or genius?

It’s amazing to meet people like this, not only because you feel you’ve grown up with them in your front room but they were highly amusing and incredibly sharp and quick with their humour.

It was a brilliant series and having come to film at the hatchery and help us out, they ended up taking a tray of our baby lobsters to do a release in the Isles of Scilly.

Clovelly Lobster & Crab Feast

A massive thank you to Clovelly Estate for their £400 donation from the Lobster & Crab Feast on the 4th September 2011.  We have been their chosen beneficiary for the last 3 years and this year was the best ever.  The weather was on our side (well until 2.30pm) and visitors turned up in their droves.

We had a lot of interest in our baby lobsters and a lot of returning customers who came to adopt another lobster.

With the help of John Balls and his fishing boat, we released another 1,349 baby lobsters 1/4 mile up the coastline, onto perfect lobster ground.

A beautiful location!  Our day started at 6am when we loaded the lobsters up at the hatchery and this photo was taken very early in the morning before the event got underway.

All the stalls run along the harbour wall.  I should have taken a photo when it was full (but we were too busy!).  That’s a good sign.

http://www.clovelly.co.uk/

3,156 baby lobsters released on the Isles of Scilly

Following the success of last years’ release of 1,000 lobsters between Bryher and Tresco we jumped at the chance of doing another  release; only this time, our biggest release on record with 3,156 beautiful little lobsters.  The interesting thing is that these baby lobsters have spent the last few months growing in our new Aquahive (our state-of-the-art lobster housing) and the colouration and vigour of these lobsters was really striking.

At 5.30 this morning, the lobsters were packed up (still in their individual cells so they don’t eat each other!) and transported to Penzance; loaded onto the Scillonian and shipped across to the Isles of Scilly.  Steve Watt, the Maritime Officer for the Isles of Scilly Inshore Fisheries & Conservation Authority (IFCA) met Charlie, Carly and the lobsters to take them over to meet the divers. Dave McBride and Tim Alsop organised the dive for us and delivered the lobsters by hand to the seabed on the east side of St Mary’s.

I have just spoken with Carly and she says the release was very successful; it’s just the team that were recovering from hyperthermia, the early start, the radio interviews and TV appearances!

Thank you once again to the Isles of Scilly Steamship Company and Hell Bay Hotel who have sponsored the release and helped organise the trip. They have also offered a raffle prize for our summer raffle of

A LUXURY TWO NIGHT BREAK ON THE ISLES OF SCILLY FOR TWO ADULTS

WITH SKYBUS FLIGHTS FROM EITHER LANDS END OR NEWQUAY AIRPORTS

STAYING FOR TWO NIGHTS DINNER BED & BREAKFAST

AT THE MAGNIFICENT HELL BAY HOTEL, BRYER, ISLES OF SCILLY

You can purchase raffle tickets over the phone on 01841 533877

Thermidor, our long standing resident orange lobster is released back into the ocean

An exceptionally rare orange lobster has been returned to the ocean by Padstow fisherman and hatchery supporter Mr David Evans. The adult hen lobster, whose shell was bright orange (due to a genetically inherited pigmentation), was nicknamed ‘Thermidor’ by staff who thought her colouration looked more like that of a cooked lobster. The feisty female has spent her last 2 years on display in the aquarium section of the hatchery’s visitor centre.

Hatchery technician Charlie Ellis said, “we like to rotate our display animals when we can so they don’t get too used to a small territory and a hearty diet of mussels and fish, and Thermidor is our longest serving display animal. David is due to be releasing some of our hatchery-reared juveniles into the wild soon, and he’s agreed to take Thermidor out at the same time. She’s also now matured to the age where she’s ready to start breeding; this year she laid thousands of eggs but had no male around to fertilise them, so it’ll be interesting to see in the future, if she is caught pregnant, whether the next generation of lobsters we raise here at the Hatchery will be orange!”.

Replacing Thermidor in the visitor centre is a crawfish, or Spiny Lobster, a locally rare species with enormous antennae and a spikey armoured shell, who is settling nicely into her new home.

Lobsters find their feet at the Isles of Scilly

On the 9th July the Lobster Hatchery took 1000 baby lobsters over to the Isles of Scilly to be released back into the wild. The release was made possible with the support from the Isles of Scilly Steamship Company who gave us a free crossing for the lobsters, staff and equipment and also to the Hell Bay Hotel who laid on the accommodation, boats and local knowledge to be able to release onto perfect lobster ground.

We were up with the sunrise at 4am and on a tight schedule.  Westcountry ITV News joined us at 5am to film us packing up the last few lobsters at the hatchery and then followed us to Penzance where our lobsters were craned on to the Scillonian.

In between coffee and bacon rolls on the Quay, we had photographers from the press and a live interview for Radio Cornwall.  On arrival Henry, Tresco Harbour Master, Philip Callan, General Manager of Hell Bay Hotel and our pristine boats awaited us and the lobsters were loaded straight on board.  We were off out to Bryher to bid our lobsters farewell.

As we drifted slowly along the channel between Bryher and Tresco the baby lobsters were poured into a box on the boat where sea water was pumped directly out of the sea into our release box at one end and out down a wide necked tube the other end, directly to the seabed. Lobsters at this stage in their life cycle bury under the gravel for two years and they are very rarely seen in the wild during this time, by people, but most importantly predators.

Everybody on board took pleasure in putting lobsters back into the sea, Alistair the Chef and Philip, General Manager of Hell Bay Hotel, the camera crew, Henry, the Harbour Master and Tristan Dorrien-Smith. Later that evening, we met a couple who had been watching us from the shore and they said ‘they couldn’t understand what was going on, it seemed we were putting things back into the sea, as opposed to taking things out?’ – it does feel good.

Philip Callan, Hell Bay Hotel is really keen on getting involved with the work of the Lobster Hatchery and we hope this is just the beginning of a long term partnership. Although we have released lobsters on the Isles of Scilly in the past, we have never released so many in one trip and we would like to think that that we can make it an annual event.

LATEST RELEASES

It’s been a long wait and I can only apologise for those that have been waiting for a long time for their adopted lobster to be released, but the hatchery is swarming with baby lobsters now.  In fact, this morning we had to do an emergency release to allow space for the younger lobsters coming through.  With the cold winter, we were not getting in berried hens (female lobsters with eggs) until March and they have not hatched as early as the last few years either (again due to the cold temperatures).

877 were released at the beginning of June at Harlyn by the Harlyn and Bristol Dive Club

40 were released at Trevose Head, 40 at Mylor, and this morning, 150 at Mother Ivy’s Bay and 150 at Trevone.

Next stop, Isles of Scilly where we hope to release 1,000 – looking forward to that!

Wake up to Wogan Lobster Release

We’re not just sad that Terry is retiring but concerned for our baby lobsters that have grown up with his dulcet tones.  In honour of the ‘Wake up to Wogan’ team we decided to adopt 4 lobsters TOGmeister, Splotty, Boggy and Deadly and release them back into the wild.  The team will live on, on the seabed.

Prize winner releases baby lobsters!!

The National Lobster Hatchery ran a joke competition to celebrate World Oceans Day. The winner Haden Dawe received a VIP tour of the hatchery, a giant cuddly lobster and then had the opportunity to assist with the release of 200 baby lobsters at Trevone beach just 2 miles from Padstow.

“These 200 are just a small sample of the 5,000 that we have released so far this season” said Dom. “Yesterday we released 800 from fishing boat Peter John II, owned by Ivor and Cameron Henry out of Mylor on the South Coast using the tube system and we still should have several months left of production still to go this season”.

I am sure that Haden enjoyed his afternoon with us and his joke is now on display at the visitor centre. When we received his joke it made us all laugh – we like a good fishy joke.

“Why did the lobster cross the beach – to get to the other tide”

World Oceans Day was created in 2008 by the United Nations General Assembly.