About 15,000 yellowtail kingfish have arrived in Tasmania to be raised for an offshore farming trial in Bass Strait, in what will be the first attempt to grow the species in Commonwealth waters.
The fish weigh about one gram each and travelled by plane and truck from a Western Australian government marine hatchery to the Institute for Marine and Antarctic Studies (IMAS) in Hobart.
They will spend the next few months in tanks before being transferred in December to the Blue Economy Zone, 12.5 kilometres off Burnie, for a 14-month trial at sea.
Researchers expect them to grow to about four kilograms.
The zone is a three-year, multi-species research program run by the Blue Economy CRC and is Australia’s first aquaculture trial in Commonwealth waters.
Kingfish are the second species to be introduced, after Atlantic salmon were stocked in the first year.
Blue Economy CRC chief executive Angela Williamson said the first year had “proved the concept” of the trial.
“We have 15,000 Atlantic salmon growing faster than modelled, infrastructure that’s stood up to the high-energy conditions of Bass Strait and a dataset Australia has never had before,” she said.
“Now we build on that.”
Kingfish are already farmed commercially on the mainland.
Williamson said South Australia produced more than 3,100 tonnes worth $52 million in 2023-24.
She said adding a second species would help build “a more integrated understanding of how species, technology, environmental conditions and regulatory systems best interact in Australia’s ocean estate”.
Blue Economy CRC chair Greg Johannes said the organisation was growing kingfish where no one in Australia had grown them before.
“Our job is to take on some of the risk, test what’s possible and generate the evidence that industry and government need to make decisions about the future,” Johannes said.
Sean Tracey, who heads fisheries and aquaculture at IMAS, said the institute’s new $70 million facility could control temperature, oxygen and other conditions in its tanks.
“Yellowtail kingfish presents a really exciting opportunity for Tasmania,” Tracey said.
“We’re looking at these new opportunities and using our world-class research facilities here to understand how species like kingfish can be developed in-tank, but also moved into the marine environment and, ideally, into the offshore Blue Economy Zone.”
Primary Industries and Water Minister Gavin Pearce said the trial was helping provide “clear science and evidence” to support the future of offshore aquaculture.
The at-sea trial is due to run for 14 months from December.
