Hawaii Company’s Ahi Farming Cages Headed to Canada

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A local company is taking their underwater fish farming cages up north after receiving a Canadian patent.

Hawaii Oceanic Technology, Inc. has been growing thousands of Yellow Fin Tuna in the specially-designed cages in Hawaii since 2009. The company has a 247-acre lease site off the North Kohala coast of the Big Island.

The company has received US and Philippine patents and is expecting patents in the EU, Japan and Australia, according to TheFishSite. They plan to sell and license the underwater tanks, called Oceanspheres, globally. You can check out pictures of the tanks on the company’s website.

The technology raised alarms among a couple of environmental organizations, which we wrote about back in 2011.

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Photo credit: Flickr user nilsrinaldi.

— Alice Terry

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