A Lovely Quote from Trip Advisor

Okay, so I already had a soft spot for the humble lobster, both as an animal (with their "flippy flappy antennae") and served as a dish. This has always troubled me as I feel guilty for eating these fabulous creatures but at the same time love seafood. So, cue the National Lobster Hatchery. Pregnant mummy lobsters are brought in by fishermen and their eggs reared, and then released back into the wild. Baby lobsters are teensy, basically plankton, and everything in the sea will happily eat them. Only a tiny percent (maybe 1 in 20,000) make it to adulthood. At the hatchery, the larval stages are cared for and reared until they get to 2-3cm long. Then they are taken back to the sea and carefully released to give them the best possible chance. This raises survival rates to tens of percent. You can see the pregnant female lobsters, lobsters in their tiny larval stages up to the 2-3cm stage (all in separate little cubicles to stop them cannabilising each other) just before they are released. There is a wealth of information, some adult lobsters to oooh and ahhh at and the opportunity to sponsor a lobster for £2.50. You can pick it's name and everything (mine is called Lancelot)! You get a certificate and a fact sheet. Great for kids. It IS small, but also perfectly formed. I think that ethically it is fantastic and really genuinely deserves to be supported. An hour after my wander round the Hatchery I passed the lobster 'holding pool' for Rick Stein's lobsters, but instead of feeling just guilt, I actually felt inspired by the work done in the quayside attraction I'd just visited. I am now supporting the hatchery monthly by direct debit (in addition to my adoption) and I'll certainly be going back. The lady at the cash desk was so grateful I was signing up to give them £5/month it was actually quite touching. These people clearly really believe in what they're doing, and so do I. Brilliant.

Jo, West London 12th April 2012

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Extra claws for a worthy cause…

Mutant three-clawed crab is set to join Padstow’s National Lobster Hatchery.

The National Lobster Hatchery,is eagerly anticipating the arrival of a unique three-clawed crab. The remarkable crab which proudly displays an extra pair of pincers on one of its legs was hauled in by fisherman Craig Robinson, who was fishing off the coast of Swanage in Dorset. On spotting the crab’s bizarre extra claw, Craig alerted the National Lobster Hatchery who were delighted to be able to offer a home to the mutant crustacean, amongst their own display of sea creatures.

Fisherman Craig said ‘I could hardly believe my eyes when I saw three claws on the crab, especially as the extra one was on the end of an individual leg, rather than protruding from an already existing claw. What’s even more incredible is that all three claws are fully functional, so it must have a pretty good advantage over other crabs”

The three-clawed crab is currently being housed at the Centre for Environment, Fisheries and Aquaculture Science (CEFAS) and will be escorted to its new home on Padstow’s South Quay, by Lobster Hatchery Trustee, Dr Grant Stentiford. Dr Stentiford is delighted with the new addition and comments “Crabs along with other crustaceans are in fact capable of re-growing limbs that have been lost or damaged, so it could be the case this crab’s regeneration mechanism has got a little confused as to what it was replacing!”

The National Lobster Hatchery’s visitor centre attracts around 40,000 visitors a year and staff believe this unusual addition will cause a real stir amongst the public, especially with all three claws in working order. The National Lobster Hatchery’s Dr Carly Daniels said: "It is certainly unusual to find crustaceans with extra claws, especially one protruding from an individual leg socket. We can't be certain as to how it came about; it could be the result of a genetic mutation or environmental factors. Either way a three-clawed crab will certainly make an eye-catching addition to the National Lobster Hatchery”

The three-clawed crab, who is a female of the edible crab species, will be arriving at the National Lobster Hatchery in April 2012, so visitors can soon view this unique creation of nature for themselves. You may have to pincer yourself to believe it though!

Happy customers

Thought I’d share an email we received:

“We just wanted to let you know, that we thoroughly enjoyed our visit today.  It was heart-warming and incredibly informative.  In fact we came home and looked at  your website and u-tube films.

We are regular visitors to Hartland in Devon and decided today to visit Padstow, mainly to eat great Rick Stein food!

Ashamedly we didn't even know of your existence, but whilst parking, our 3 year old son saw your signs and was insistent that we visited.  We're so glad we did - we were overwhelmed.  Seeing the baby lobsters was a profoundly moving and quite an extraordinary experience, they are all so utterly individual and beautiful. 

Thank you so much for such a lovely time.

Good luck for the future and keep up your fabulous work, we hope to come and see you again soon.”

Customer Feedback

I’ve just emptied the customer feedback box and thought I would share some of the lovely comments people have made.  I can honestly say there was only one negative feedback form in a pile of 40 and it sounds like he came in when we were renovating a couple of the tanks – so apologies for that.  So these are some of the things people have said:

A little gem of a place!

My son is lobster crazy and this place made him explode with excitement.

Absolutely loved it, will definitely be back.

Loving the lobsters.

So cool!

Wonderful to find out that local fishermen work alongside the scheme.

Being an ex-crawfish diver, in 60’s, 70’s & 80’s, its nice to see you sustaining.

My 7 year old daughter loved it.  Its a shame it can’t be bigger.  You should ask for funding to make it bigger, it is fab.  (We’re working on it!)

Very interesting and informative.  Good to see you support and promote your fishermen and sustainable fishing – WELL DONE!

This was a great visit especially for our 6 year old daughter who loved it and now understands about sustainability.

Having completed the developments over the winter we are really pleased with the visitor centre.  Over the last 5 years we have really maximised the potential of the space we have down there and it works better than ever.

Lobster Mothering Sunday …..

Bring your mum along for FREE to the National Lobster Hatchery on Mothering Sunday and see our mummy lobsters in their new maternity ward.  By then, lobsters should be hatching on a daily occurrence ….

and if you’ve forgotten to buy her flowers and chocolates, we’ve got some lovely Cornish fudge or other lovely gifts in our shop.

MUMS GO FREE ON SATURDAY 2ND & SUNDAY 3RD APRIL 2011

The new broodtank arrives

We had thought about the dimensions and whether we could fit it through the door, honestly!!  But to be fair it would have been difficult to get round corners, so our lovely kindly neighbours agreed to crane it into the back door, at low tide from the slipway.

The white side that you can see is the acrylic window so that visitors can see into the lobster maternity ward.

Dramatic changes ……..

 

The shop facelift is starting to shape up. What a transformation.... on the left is the old shelving. The story goes, that when these shelves were built they were trying to come up with inspiration for the shape and decided to draw round Lucille's pregnant belly - hence the curvy shelf. Sorry Lucille....

Having lost half our retail display space, with the new viewing area into the hatchery, we had to come up with a new design for our shop area.  As you can see it looks fantastic already and I think we have got even more space than before.  Painting and LED lights are in progress this morning.

We are also preparing another space for a new education display.  Work will start on that this afternoon.

The builders are in

I’ve only been out of the office for two days and already it looks fantastic.  The 2m x 2m viewing area is going to make a dramatic difference to the visitor centre. 

On the right hand side you can see the low wall for our new brood tank which will have an acrylic window, allowing you to see the mummy lobsters in their caves and hopefully the eggs on their underside.

Thought you might like to see a photo of all the rubble and it even captures the amount of dust in the air.

Thanks to Save our Seas Foundation who have funded these developments.

Building works start tomorrow…..

View from the Visitor Centre                      View from within the Hatchery

We’re busy preparing for the big knock through tomorrow, from the Visitor Centre into the Hatchery.  The idea is to give the visitor a more ‘up close and personal’ experience with the baby lobsters. 

The viewing area will allow you to look directly into the holding trays where the juvenile lobsters are grown on.  We are also expecting a new broodstock tank for our maternity ward, which will have an acrylic side panel, allowing you to see the eggs on the underside of our mummy lobsters.

The visitor centre should only be closed for one day (19th January 2011), while they knock through the hole and after that, we can remain open while the rest of the work is completed.  Watch this space……..

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.

New children’s interactive display

Dr Jo Henley from Sci Art Solutions came to install our new children’s display yesterday.  Come and try your skill with our new fishing game, arrange the creatures in order of the food chain and test your knowledge with 3 new quiz and colouring sheets.

It’s with thanks to South West Water that we were able to get this children’s interactive bench commissioned.