Thousands of Octopus maya eggs are expected to spawn in the coming weeks. (Photo: UMDI-Sisal)

Researchers eagerly await spawn of octopus eggs

MEXICO
Tuesday, November 17, 2009, 01:50 (GMT + 9)

Experimental farm researchers of the Multidisciplinary Teaching and Research Unit at the National Autonomous University of Mexico's (UNAM) School of Sciences, in the port of Sisal, anticipate the spawn of 20,000 eggs of Maya red octopus (Octopus maya) in the coming weeks.

Three years after the birth of 'Octavio,' the first octopod bred in that hatchery, researchers await the arrival of 20,000 new octopus in the first and only farm of its kind in the world, indicates a report released by the Yucatan Produce Foundation.

Soon a new stage of the project will begin next year, which consists of the installation of a commercial farm of Mayan octopus in the facility.

Experts hope to avail themselves of the resource from economic, social and scientific aspects, and to contribute important advances to the world of science.

The entrails of octopus, for example, can be used in bird feed manufacture because of their high protein content, and the enzymes derived from the mollusc’s liver are used in the industrial manufacture of skin-care creams.

According to the person in charge of the project, Carlos Pink Vazquez, the octopus is “a wonder of nature.”

A cephalopod production system was developed on the farm that was able to obtain 85,000 units in 36 months.

“That type of research is long term, as the shrimp alone took 30 years in demonstrating that it can be exploited successfully in farms,” the expert explained.

In other places around the world, initiatives similar to the Mexican were taken on.

“The government of Spain allocated EUR 10 million to a project similar to ours, which in its first year could only reproduce 20 octopus and due to the results, far from cancelling it, authorised a new budget of EUR 5 million to continue those studies for five years more,” Rosas Vazquez explained.

Some 5,827 tonnes of Octopus maya were landed in Yucatan, compared to 1,498 tonnes in the same period last year, Secretariat of Agriculture, Livestock, Rural Development, Fishery and Food (SAGARPA) data reveals.

Related information:

- SQUID/OCTOPUS MARKET REPORT, 11 November

By Analia Murias
editorial@fis.com
www.fis.com  

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