Yellowtail Kingfish

Yellowtail kingfish are pelagic schooling fish found throughout the Pacific Ocean. Yellowtail can grow up to 2m and are common to 1m in fork length. Yellowtail kingfish are often seen schooling as adults and are often found near rocky reefs and sandy areas in coastal waters and may enter estuaries.

Young fish up to 7kg are known to form shoals of several hundred fish. They are generally found close to the coast, while larger fish are more common around deep reefs and offshore islands and can reach upwards of 70kg.

They are native to California but concentrated in Southern California where waters are warmer.  They rarely travel to Northern California and only during warm years.

Our facilities are designed to be escape-proof, with all fish raised inside secure buildings. There will be multiple mechanical barriers in place to prevent escape in pipes, and all pipes for moving fish are contained on the farm and none terminate at the ocean or bay. Even a 2,500 Tsunami event will not over-top tanks. Security measures will include 24/7 on-site staffing, video surveillance, and key-card access doors, prevention of any manual (human) removal of fish from the facility.

 

The nutritional requirements of the fish can be met with a broad range of ingredients that are derived from crops, agricultural byproduct, and sustainable fisheries.  More innovative break-through ingredients include fermented single cell proteins, insect meals, and algae oils.

Currently, feed contains approximately 15-20% marine ingredients, where 35% of that are primarily sourced from fisheries processing by-product such as heads and trimmings. The rest comes from sustainably managed fisheries.

Feed manufacturing for aquaculture is an innovative, and sustainable-minded industry.  Nordic will be working closely with the feed producers to refine our formulations that prioritize the inclusion of non-marine derived protein sources.

Nordic Aquafarms operates on the basis that fish health and welfare is directly related to quality of our feed, our water, our husbandry practices, and our farm management. We minimize the risks to fish health and welfare by creating the highest standards in fish health management and farm biosecurity. The NAF Fish Health, Welfare, and Farm Biosecurity Management Plan is a fish health program that is evidence-based, tailored to our facilities, and establishes responsible and professional veterinarian health management. It is the diligence of NAF’s fish health team and a strong program that will minimizes disease risk to the farm and environment through proper quarantine, robust biosecurity, daily fish health assessments, proven health diagnostics, and staff education.

Yes, vaccination will be one of the many tools Nordic will employ to ensure their fish are always healthy and well cared for. Fish welfare is of paramount importance to Nordic. NAF will favor the use of preventative health tools over prescription medicines, and vaccination is one such way to protect fish against severe disease outbreak from endemic pathogens. Vaccines are biologic substances that are required to provide fish with immunity against specific diseases. Vaccination can also protect the farm against pathogen amplification by reducing the shed of pathogens and raising the threshold of pathogen load required for infection. Vaccines used for protection against high-risk endemic pathogens are prescribed by the farm veterinarian through a legal VCPR relationship (Vet-Client-Patient-Relationship).

• Nordic early plans are to produce ~2-3,000 metric tons of fish annually with potential for incremental expansion.
• Fish will be processed onsite into consumer ready products.
• Fresh (not frozen) fish will be distributed to west coast markets.