Help Renovate Berwickshire Lobster Hatchery
Berwickshire Marine Reserve
Description
The Berwickshire Marine Reserve was set up in 1984 by divers, fishermen and conservationists, with the common goal to preserve the marine environment. As we are a voluntary marine reserve, there are no statutory laws or regulation in place and so we aim to achieve our goal through community engagement, education and persuasion.
The reserve starts in Eyemouth covering 10km2 of coastline to end at Pettico wick at St Abbs head. It also travels out to the 50m depth mark at sea.
Over the years the BMR has taken on many projects including: intertidal surveys, temperature logging, habitat mapping, 360 filming, shorewatch, beachwatch and more.
Thanks to the lag fund we were able set up a pilot a lobster hatchery and marine education centre. In partnership with the St Abbs Marine Station and the fish merchant DR Collin, we set up our lobster hatchery and education centre in the hippodrome in Eyemouth.
For many years now, Lobsters have and are being overfished throughout Scotland
247,000 tonnes of lobster was removed from Eyemouth in 2019.
Due to their lifecycle, lobsters are more sensitive to overfishing
Females carry up to 20,000 eggs for up to 9 months, from which only 1 survives to adulthood.
Our project had three main goals:
1) Increase lobster population/stock level within Berwickshire Marine Reserve
2) Engage the local and visiting community through the lobster release programme and educational visits
3) Collaboration with local fish merchants and Creel fishermen
The hatchery and education centre was open to the public on Saturdays from 10 - 4 throughout January and February. We saw a variety of people stopping by from holiday makers to locals to passers by.
For the project we also recruited new volunteers to come feed the lobsters when staff were unavailable. This has now led to a core group of volunteers forming that meet up every week to help us with a variety of different tasks.
Requirements
The Berwickshire Marine Reserve piloted a lobster hatchery in January and February 2022 - the response from the community was amazing and we had over 600 visitors in 6 weeks.
Now we have been given the opportunity to relocate the hatchery into a larger space but we need help to make it fit for purpose in order for the project to continue to educate the public on the local fishing industry and marine life, while raising baby lobsters to juveniles, to be released back into the sea, from which they have a better chance of survival.
We would like to be open to the public in June so that we can engage with as many people as possible.In order to make the new centre ready we would welcome help with any of the list below;
Walls - Insulate, board, skim and paint
Windows - Replace window onto harbour
Doors - Replace main entrance doors
Ceiling - Insulated, board, skim and paint
Floor - Levelled
Water - Install access to water & drain
Kitchen Area - kitchen unit/ sink
Sockets -IP rated sockets to be installed approx. 12 double sockets
Lighting -Suitable surface mounted LED Strip lights approx. 5