GULF SHORES, Ala. (AP) — Alabama's conservation agency says it's raising flounder for the first time to supplement a decline in the natural population of the fish in coastal waters.
A news release says Marine Resources Division experts are tending to thousands of larval flounder at a state center in Gulf Shores. They hope to get between 1,000 and 5,000 fish from the hatchery in the first year with a goal of releasing about 60,000 fish annually in a few years.
Those fish would help add to a population of southern flounder that's been falling since 2008. Scientists aren't sure what's causing the decline.