BRISTOL – The Dominican Republic’s first commercial fish hatchery will be built through a partnership between Roger Williams University and Grupo Puntacana Foundation, the nonprofit arm of Grupo Puntacana.
Housed at the Puntacana Resort and Club, the focus of the venture will be to increase the availability of aquacultured animals in the aquarium trade, repopulate depleted ornamental fish species to local coral reefs and draw tourism and economic development to those reefs.
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Some of the species targeted for repopulation include the royal gramma (Gramma loreto), various gobies (e.g., Elacatinus hortsi) and peppermint shrimp (e.g., Lysmata jundalini).
The partnership will also provide an opportunity for RWU Center for Economic and Environmental Development researchers to better understand the social and environmental challenges presented by the rise of tourism and related development in the Punta Cana region.
“We’re very thankful and happy for this partnership with Roger Williams [University],” Frank Elias Rainieri, ’99, an RWU trustee and vice president of Grupo Puntacana, said in a statement. “As an alumnus, it’s a dream come true.”
This partnership comes on the heels of more than 30 years of coastal management and coral reef restoration by Grupo Puntacana Foundation.
Serving as consultants for the pilot program, RWU faculty and students will assemble the hatchery systems and ship them to the Caribbean nation.
“We’ll be able to give students an experience at Roger Williams where they can go from just learning about the species to commercially producing them,” Andrew Rhyne, RWU assistant professor of marine biology, said in a statement. “That’s a very rare thing to be able to do.”
According to the release, there is the potential for summer internships in the Dominican Republic for RWU students.
Emily Gowdey-Backus is a staff writer for PBN. You can follow her on Twitter @FlashGowdey or contact her via email, gowdey-backus@pbn.com.
