Research - Health
As stewards of the state’s natural resources, one of our goals at the SCDNR is to ensure the health and diversity of marine organisms in state waters. The state’s marine stocking research program helps the SCDNR meet this goal by providing cultured animals for controlled experiments in environmental tolerance and disease transmission. Understanding the response of organisms to the natural fluctuations in the environment and the mechanisms and timing of infection by parasites and disease is vital to sound resource management. In addition, efforts to recapture and identify hatchery-released fish from the stocking program can provide additional life history data to fisheries managers assessing species abundance and population health.