Whitby Marine Discovery Centre

Yorkshire Post

Whitby's latest visitor attraction has opened. The Marine Discovery Centre is the latest project by the Lobster Hatchery, who's aim is marine conservation and a celebration of coastal heritage.  Yorkshire Post photographer, Tony Johnson takes a look inside.

Transcript

00:00 I'm Joe Redfern, I'm the manager of the Whitby Lobster Hatchery and the Whitby Marine Discovery

00:07 Centre.

00:08 So we set up the charity side, which is the lobster hatchery.

00:13 We installed this new facility in March 2023.

00:16 We've been releasing juvenile lobsters from there over this year.

00:20 We've released just over 9,000.

00:22 And then we very recently, as in October half term, opened the Visitor Centre, which is

00:30 the Marine Discovery Centre, which is just behind you through there.

00:31 The Visitor Centre is there to provide education for people coming to, so they can learn about,

00:38 understand and ultimately appreciate our native marine biodiversity.

00:44 So everything we have in our tanks, we get around the coast of the UK.

00:48 We're also celebrating and promoting our heritage here in Whitby, our maritime heritage.

00:54 Finally, that's providing an income to keep the lobster hatchery moving forward and delivering

00:59 on our marine conservation aims.

01:01 So my background is marine biology, but I've also worked as a lobster fisherman.

01:06 So the hatchery really brings those two together.

01:09 The hatchery's aim is to try and underpin those lobster populations and make sure that

01:14 they're protected long into the future.

01:17 We've had a really concerning time over the past few years.

01:20 It's been very concerning for our fishers along the coast.

01:24 Luckily, lobster populations seem to be doing okay.

01:27 Not like the crab populations, which are really severely down.

01:31 But we have seen a massive increase in effort in the amount that we're catching lobsters

01:35 over recent years.

01:37 And that's why we think we need the hatchery to make sure that that's sustainable moving

01:41 forward into the future.

01:42 I love it.

01:43 I could be here every day if I could, but there's me and all the guys here are really

01:49 committed to making the best out of what we can with this facility.

01:53 So yeah, it's been a really good project to get involved with.

01:57 And we're happy now we can open the door and invite the public in to come and see what

02:00 we've achieved.

02:01 And it generally really pleased a lot of people surprised.

02:04 They didn't know anything about this, or they hadn't seen what we were trying to do.

02:09 So lots of people pleasantly surprised as they come in and they can meet some of our

02:13 biggest lobsters, some of our smallest lobsters and see what we're doing here in the hatchery.

02:17 And we've got Desmond in there.

02:19 We've had him for about two years.

02:21 He's our Insta-famous lobster that was named by Instagram.

02:24 We've also got Lemony Snicket.

02:26 He's won a hundred million a bright orange lobster.

02:29 And Melvin, who's our biggest lobster, he's about 30 or 40 years old.

02:33 old.

02:35 [BLANK_AUDIO]

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