Back in 2014, giant plankton nets were dragged across the Cockburn Sound in WA to collect thousands of Pink Snapper eggs, in a hope they could provide crucial help to restocking fisheries in Australia, and to monitor the fish stocks in the wild. Now, in 2015, they've undergone similar trials again, collecting thousands of eggs, but this time those eggs have progressed to stage two and hatched into baby fish, which they need your help to get back in the ocean!

RecFishWest have turned to crowd funding to help raise the $25,000 required to put these 100,000 baby pink snapper back into the wild, where you can of course catch them! Currently held in tanks at the Cockburn Sound Hatchery, the Snapper are only 15mm long and in their larval phase right now, but in two months time after careful culturing and monitoring, these guys will be 40-50mm long and ready to be released.

Every one of the 100,000 fish are scientifically marked by a process called Alizarin otolith marking, which allows scientists to identify whether individual fish were part of the program when fully grown. They're immersed in a substance during the larval stage, which leaves a colour on the Otolith membranes (Like in humans, the Otolith senses acceleration movements) which can be found later.

Marking, feeding, and releasing these fish back into the wild isn't free, so help out the guys from RecFishWest by donating to their crowd funding campaign right here. In doing so, you'll become a 'Snapper Guardian' and contribute to keeping WA's fish stocks alive and well, so you can continue catching tasty snapper for years to come...

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