SUPPORTERS OF THE NATIONAL LOBSTER HATCHERY

Thanks to sensible fishing practices and the good work of the National Lobster Hatchery, lobsters are on the increase here in Cornwall. They live very comfortably in rocks off both the south and north coast of Cornwall and being very lazy creatures they don't tend to migrate much - which is why the stock enhancement programme run by the hatchery works so well.

As a sponsor of the National Lobster Hatchery we donate 50p for every lobster bought online by our home delivery customers, helping them to conserve the lobster populations and preserve the coastal marine bio-diversity of Cornwall and the Isles of Scilly.

The National Lobster Hatchery can be found on the docks of the picturesque Cornish fishing village of Padstow. Their aim is to help maintain a healthy lobster population in Cornwall through conservation, education and research.

How do they do it? - Local fishermen and shellfish wholesalers donate egg-carrying female lobsters to the hatchery, after the eggs hatch the lobster larvae are reared under artificial conditions until they metamorphose to juvenile lobsters, at which point they are further grown until they are released with the assistance of local fishermen and divers to suitable habitats.

Around one in ten thousand lobster larvae are likely to survive to become juvenile lobsters in the wild, under hatchery conditions these survival rates are dramatically improved enabling young lobsters to be given a head-start protected from predators and starvation. Find our more about the hatchery at www.nationallobsterhatchery.co.uk