Hundreds of fish from New England Aquarium sent to NY as part of groundbreaking breeding program

    QUINCY, Massachusetts (WCVB) -- Hundreds of fish at the New England Aquarium's Animal Care Center in Quincy, Massachusetts, are being shipped to an aquarium in New York as part of a groundbreaking breeding program.

Seven hundred smallmouth grunt fish are being sent to the Ripley Aquarium in Buffalo, New York.

With the support of a three-year grant from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), the New England Aquarium and six partner institutions including North Carolina Aquariums, National Aquarium, Aquarium of the Pacific, Shedd Aquarium, University of Massachusetts Boston and Roger Williams University, have been able to develop rearing protocols, improve rearing methods and create aquaculture educational materials.

"We've done it so many times that it feels like a recipe at this point, and it's just fun to be able to ship 700 of the fish that you raised on to another institution," said Monika Schmick, who leads the sustainability team.

The aquarium shares its sustainably raised fish with 29 accredited institutions across the country that are a part of the AZA Aquatic Sustainability Committee’s Larval Program, including the Aquarium of the Pacific in Long Beach, California, Shedd Aquarium in Chicago, National Aquarium in Baltimore, the North Carolina Aquarium, the Columbus Zoo and more.

"We're just trying to do our best with taking less out of the wild," Schmuck said.

Last year, the breeding program was so successful that the New England Aquarium met two years’ worth of breeding goals for lookdowns in one year with more than 938 shipped and shared with other institutions.