CUTTLEFISH CULTURE - STATE OF THE ART AND FUTURE TRENDS

ABSTRACT. – The present article provides an overview of cuttlefish culture, itscurrent state of art, and future trends. Present cuttlefish culture related research,recently developed technologies (like culture systems, maternity/nursery and juve-nile and adult proceedings) are described. Finally, current problems and prospectsfor future research are discussed. GENERAL OVERVIEW AND PASTRESEARCH Fisheries and Human Consumption The increase of the human population has led toa greater demand for fishery products, and there-fore intensified diversification of fish catches. Al-though there has been a decline in fish consump-tion and production in developed countries, globalfish consumption has doubled since the beginningof the 1970’s (Delgado et al. 2003). During this pe-riod, aquaculture production followed this increaseand has risen from 6 to 30% of total fishery pro-duction (Delgado et al. 2003). Landings fromworldwide aquaculture increased rapidly in the lastdecade, to approximately 10–15% per year. Ac-cording to FAO (2002), total aquaculture in 1996was 26.7 million tons, and in 2001 increased to37.5 million tons. Rapid growth was due to thecombined effects of an increasing world popula-tion, decreasing catches from traditional fisheries(Caddy & Griffiths 1995), and changing consumerpreferences in developed countries (Lem &Shehadeh 1997, Tacon 1997). Ultimately, this wasreflected in world fish catches, including cephalo-pods. Between 1950 and 1970, cephalopod land-ings increased from 20 million tons (Mt) to 70 Mt(Amaratunga 1983). At present, cephalopod spe-cies represent an important seafood supply for hu-man consumption worldwide. According to FAO(FAO 2002, 2004), cephalopods contribute approx-imately 14% of the world fisheries. The fast de-cline of the worldwide fish stocks, as well as thetechnological advances over the last 15 years, anddecreased prices of commonly cultured species,makes the development of technology for rearingand culture of new species profitable, indeed nec -essary (FAO 2004). High commercial value of thecephalopods, particularly in the Asian and Medi-terranean markets, and some aspects of cephalopodbiology and physiology make them good candi-dates for aquaculture (Kunisaki 2000, Ruiz-Cappillas