Industry commentator Daryl Sykes gives a brief overview of the pursuit of farmed rock lobster in New Zealand
Despite the many setbacks experienced over many years, interest in marine farming of rock lobsters continues among researchers and aspiring marine farmers. It is an appealing concept given the market demand and prices for live rock lobsters, the natural limits to the productivity of wild stocks and an increasing demand worldwide for food safe, sustainable, high quality seafood.
There is growing contemporary discussion regarding market opportunities for farmed rock lobsters, including the potential to market smaller-sized lobsters as a premium or niche product, sometimes referred to as “cocktail lobsters”. However, farming rock lobsters is not easy and it is not cheap.
Spiny lobsters have a uniquely extended oceanic planktonic larval phase (phyllosoma), which can last up to a year or more with numerous moulting stages. Each stage has specific and demanding requirements for food, water quality, and space; survival rates through all stages are low, even with the best systems. During the larval phases, lobsters require live prey and meticulously managed diets that are labour-intensive to produce at scale, leading to high operational costs. Even slight lapses in water quality, disease management, or nutrition can drastically reduce survival, making consistent production difficult.
Incubation of lobsters from fertilised egg clusters to a marketable size is difficult and remains economically unviable. It has been tried and failed in other countries.
Dr. Jiro Kittaka, a prominent Japanese marine scientist, was internationally recognized for pioneering research on raising spiny rock lobsters from egg through their larval phases in captivity. His work laid much of the scientific foundation for modern lobster aquaculture, and is frequently referenced in both historical and technical literature. Kittaka was the first researcher to achieve the complete laboratory rearing of spiny lobsters through all planktonic (phyllosoma) stages to the post-larval puerulus stage. In 1988, he successfully reared Jasus lalandii (South African rock lobster) and later other species, demonstrating the technical feasibility of closing the larval cycle under controlled conditions.
Kittaka’s work gave deep insights into lobster larval physiology, feeding requirements, susceptibility to disease, and ideal rearing conditions (including temperature, water quality, and diet). His work formed the backbone of nearly all subsequent lobster aquaculture science and hatchery attempts globally, making his contributions highly influential in the field. However, despite breakthroughs, Kittaka emphasized the persistent challenges of commercial larval culture, especially low survival rates and economic feasibility.
And so it has proven to be. Fast forward nearly forty years and several attempts have been made in New Zealand to shortcut the Kittaka “egg to juvenile” lobster aquaculture method by collecting juveniles from the wild fishery for ongrowing. Despite the technical feasibility of collecting and on-growing, commercial aquaculture has to date not proven to be economically viable. To date the only significant established lobster aquaculture industry is that of Vietnam, based on the grow-out of wild caught juveniles. Its development was entirely market driven and dates back to the late 1970s and early 1980s, when demand for lobsters from China grew rapidly.
New Zealand’s Quota Management System (QMS) functions as a commercial property right mechanism critical to the sustainable management of rock lobster fisheries, and it underpins the legal framework for any commercial farming that involves harvesting juveniles from the wild.This quota system has and continues to be integral to industry discussions about developing viable lobster aquaculture alongside effective wild stock management.
In response to increasing interest by Marlborough Sounds mussel farmers in the early 1990’s, the NZ Rock Lobster Industry Council (NZ RLIC) developed a set of protocols to enable the harvest and ongrowing of “undersized” lobsters. The NZ RLIC successfully argued that taking juveniles for commercial sale or aquaculture must be balanced with the need to sustain wild populations, therefore any commercial development if reliant on harvesting juveniles from the wild as seed stock, must operate within the Quota Management System (QMS) framework.
This means:
- Juvenile collection would need to be aligned with quota limits allocated to holders, as these quotas regulate total allowable commercial catches.
- Quota holders have exclusive rights to harvest within their quotas, so access to juveniles for farming likely requires quota ownership or transfers of annual catching rights (ACE).
Marine farming operations using wild juveniles will therefore require close coordination with quota management to ensure wild stocks are not compromised, and regulatory compliance is maintained. The NZ RLIC protocols resolved those important issues.
In 1995 the then Minister of Fisheries, Hon Doug Kidd, endorsed the industry protocols and authorised by way of Special Permits the collection and retention of juvenile lobsters (puerulus or stage 1 and 2 juveniles) in the Bay of Plenty and Hawkes Bay. The opportunity was initially taken up by a small number of entrepreneurs. Their early endeavours very quickly confirmed that constraints such as limited availability of juveniles, high mortality immediately post-capture, and a range of economic factors would limit industry development beyond the first pilot projects.
The biggest obstacle to ongrowing seems to be the reliance on the collection of wild puerulus. The quantities that can be collected are limited by natural and very variable and unpredictable fluctuations in larval settlement in the wild fisheries. Even if that challenge can be resolved, the combination of natural mortality, slow growth, high infrastructure and labour costs, disease risk, and uncertain market access makes profitability extremely challenging.
Rock lobsters are susceptible to diseases, including those carried by waterborne pathogens or introduced via equipment. These can spread quickly in dense farming situations and result in significant losses. Requirements for tanks or sea cages are specialized. Rock lobsters demand high water quality and stable optimal temperatures for best growth. This requires flow-through or recirculating systems with precise management and potentially significant energy costs.
To successfully ongrow juvenile lobsters, the ideal site selection must be near clean seawater, away from pollutants, but accessible and with protection from predators. Ocean farming using a raft system has been trialled in Australia but faces unique environmental and biosecurity risks. The biosecurity issues relate to preventing the introduction and spread of disease. This requires sophisticated protocols, intense oversight, and can be very costly to establish and maintain.
The ongoing focus of rock lobster fisheries management in New Zealand is to ensure the sustainability of wild populations. Various management groups are involved in monitoring stock, assessing aquaculture potential, and setting harvest rules to protect juvenile lobsters.
The QMS framework remains the foundation for any commercial development involving wild juvenile collection for farming, ensuring that juvenile harvest is accounted for within the quota system, protecting wild stocks while enabling commercial access. Under the current NZ RLIC protocols the ownership of ACE (annual catch entitlements) thus determines the legal right to harvest juveniles, enabling on-growing ventures to coordinate with quota holders and fisheries management. This system provides the economic incentives and legal certainty necessary to support innovation in lobster aquaculture while preserving sustainability.
