Smart and persistent seals are among the challenges facing Clean Seas Tuna, the company seeking to breed southern bluefin tuna.
Interim chief executive Paul Steere says progress is being made on the tuna breeding program, although it’s still too soon to predict when shareholders might see a return.
Getting the tuna big enough before the water turns cold is one of the challenges the aquaculture company has to overcome.
Then there are the seals.
The seals “know a good feed when they can see it”, Mr Steere said at the company’s annual general meeting on Tuesday.
“NZ grey fur seals are renowned for being canny and smart and going everywhere.”
Clean Seas says it will control the seals without harming them.
Mr Steere said he expected better survival rates in 2012 from the company’s southern bluefin tuna program.
The company achieved a world first this year by growing eggs into fingerlings and having some survive in the sea before it got too cold.
“No one has done that before,” Mr Steere said in Adelaide
“Let’s not kid ourselves. We have got a long way to go with the tuna. But we’re not going backwards.”
The company hopes to get the fingerlings in the sea earlier next year so they can grow bigger before it gets cold.
The company is based in Port Lincoln in South Australia.
Clean Seas Tuna already is successfully selling Kingfish and those returns are improving with greater demand from chefs in Japan - especially since the March earthquake and tsunami.
“We have more demand now than we have production,” he said.
Company founder Hagen Stehr said the aquaculture industry was “very concerned” about BHP Billiton’s proposed desalination plan at the top of the Spencer Gulf.
Mr Stehr reiterated a promise to make Clean Seas Tuna shareholders “bloody millionaires” by suing the mining giant should the desalination plant make the gulf saltier and hurt their businesses.
Shareholders were reminded that the company was in development and it was not able to say when they might get a return.
The stock gained 0.05 of a cent to close at 7.8 cents.
