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FRIDAY, MAY 16, 2008

Aquaculture students release flounder at Oak Island

By By Matt Tomsic
Star-News Intern

OAK ISLAND - Oak Island | About 2 p.m. Tuesday, a red Durango with a fish tank hitched to the back led a caravan of South Brunswick High School students to a spot along Davis Creek.

The students backed the tank up against a bulkhead. Five students and Byron "Barry" Bey, their teacher, began preparing to drop southern flounder into the water. Other students stood by with water-filled buckets to flush out any flounder stuck in the tank.

In front of a crowd of more than 25, the students opened the tank's doors, setting 1,119 flounder free.

The students and Bey raised the young flounder, or "fingerlings," throughout the year before releasing them into the creek.

Students made sure the flounder were well-fed and disease free, among other things, said senior Lucas Kendrick.

"The more you're there, the more you get involved, the more you like it," he said.

More than 50 percent of the flounder fingerlings lived to be released, which met one of the goals students set for the aquaculture class, he said.

Kendrick is interested in a career in aquaculture and mariculture and is taking classes at Brunswick Community College.

The flounder program started in November 2006 and has grown since its inception, Bey said.

The University of North Carolina Wilmington, N.C. State University, the N.C. Division of Marine Fisheries, the Long Beach Artificial Reef Association and the Brunswick County school system are a few of the groups that participate in the program.

Bob Black, project coordinator for the Long Beach Artificial Reef Association, said the community is fortunate to have a group interested in the work the students are doing.

"This is about as protected as you can get for the small flounder," he said.

Bey said the program teaches students about conservation and also helps with low flounder populations in the area.

"We think it's a good thing because it's helping the general area with all the coastal development going on," he said.

Since 2006 the program has gotten better. Student involvement, community support and teamwork have the biggest impact on the class' success, Bey said.

It's a success when you take the fish and grow them to a large enough stock size for release, he said. And judging by the amount of fish they released this year, Bey said the program was very successful.

"We've produced better results with the southern flounder this year than we have in the past," Bey said.

Bey's class also has gotten recent national attention for its flounder-fingerling program.

Bey was one of nine teachers from South Brunswick High School who won the Time Warner Cable National Teacher of the Year Award. The class also received a $19,200 grant from N.C. Sea Grant to study flounder and pine culture, Bey said.

The General Assembly created the grant to "protect and enhance the state's coastal fishery resources through individual grants," according to the N.C. Coast Watch Web site.

"I think it's great," Bey said. "It gives the kids a good appreciation of the environment and what a fragile environment it is. It's good to give something back."

Matt Tomsic: 343-2264

matt.tomsic@starnewsonline.com