La Jolla Students To Release First Batch Of Cultured White Seabass

High school students from The Preuss School UCSD and Hubbs-SeaWorld Research Institute scientists will release their first batch of cultured white seabass, which have been raised in a classroom, into Mission Bay.

The Preuss students began raising the fish in September as a way of learning  about the sustainability of a natural resource though the practices of environmental science, and the importance of water quality, officials said. The students were participating in their inaugural semester of the Hubbs- SeaWorld Research Institute's Seabass in the Classroom program.

The long-term student research program is part of the Ocean Resources Enhancement and Hatchery Program that resulted from a partnership between state agencies, public utility companies, sportfishing groups and members of the scientific community to restore depleted populations of recreationally and commercially caught fish, officials said.

Hubbs-SeaWorld Research Institute officials said that between the 1950s and the 1980s, annual party boat catches of white seabass dropped from more than 55,000 to fewer than 3,500. --City News Service