Casually dressed and working out of a converted shipping container on a quiet stretch of the Ferry Reach shoreline, Dr. Samia Sarkis dips into a tank of water and scoops up a handful of spat.

To the untrained eye, the conglomeration looks like gritty brown sand, but closer inspection reveals that these are baby scallops - little stars of a dedicated aquaculture programme begun by the marine scientist almost 20 years ago in a bid to replenish the species in local waters.

To understand the importance of Dr. Sarkis' work it is necessary to go back to the 1970s when a huge decline in Bermuda's bivalve population - pearl oysters, clams, scallops and mussels - was noticed, particularly in Harrington Sound.

Like local finfish stocks suffering the same fate, protective environmental legislation was then enacted which included scallops and clams.

In 1987 this decline in commercially exploited species was among the topics discussed at a long-range planning workshop at the Bermuda Biological Station for Research (BBSR), which looked at ways to both to increase their natural numbers, and also to possibly develop a commercial aquaculture programme.

Unfortunately, two factors stood in the way of proceeding: a lack of scientific information and resources, and inadequate numbers of bivalves to study.

As luck would have it, Dr. Sarkis was a graduate student at BBSR at the time. Having previously worked in aquaculture in France, she was keen to overcome the obstacles highlighted at the workshop, and chose scallops as the subject for her doctoral dissertation.

"We looked at scallops because people used to fish them recreationally, and there was a stronger interest in them," she says. "Also, there was potential for farming them."

Scallops also proved to be fast-growing, which made them easy to work with. There are 300 species of scallops in the world, not all of which are edible, so Dr. Sarkis concentrated on just two: the Bermuda sand scallop (Pecten ziczac) and the calico scallop (Argopecten gibbus), the latter proving to be the easiest to raise.

However, because neither was being cultured anywhere else in the world, a lot of groundwork needed to be done.

Initially the research programme was low-budget, unintensive, and slow to advance because Dr. Sarkis had to find the remaining scallops and do very basic work.

It wasn't until mid-1999, when the BBSR received substantial funding from the Bank of Bermuda Ltd., that the programme was able to develop and create facilities specifically geared to rearing scallops, and from then on impressive progress has been made.

With the funds, a 200 sq.ft. hatchery was established in the converted shipping container.

"In this space we can produce 200,000 young scallops (referred to as spat) in a two-months period," Dr. Sarkis says. "They are thumbnail-sized at this stage, but in three months approximately 80 percent will go on to become market sized in the following year, so that is an intense production capacity. We could repeat this cycle several times in a year and actually end up producing 800,000 in a single year."

The culture process begins with the stimulation of adult scallops to spawn, at which time they release their eggs and sperm into the water, which are then gathered, and the eggs are fertilised and grown in 1000-litre tanks.

Here they develop into larvae, two weeks after which they develop a little foot designed to attach to a substrate. In the natural environment this would be seaweed, but at BBSR a special mesh is provided instead. Ten days later, the larvae become fixed and settled, at which point they are referred to as spat.

When they reach a certain size they are transferred to triangular (pearl) nets suspended on lines in the sea, where they remain until they reach maturity.

"The whole cycle is about one year from the eggs to the table," says Dr. Sarkis.

Growing food for the scallops until they are transferred into the sea is also an important part of the programme, and single-celled algae are carefully cultured in sterile water to provide a healthy, nutritionally balanced diet for optimum growth.

All indications are that the programme has been a quiet success, and the BBSR has achieved its goal. Dr. Sarkis has even been able to provide scallops to restaurants, where they have proved a popular menu feature.

They were also well received at an international food show held at the Fairmont Hamilton Princess hotel hosted by Butterfield & Vallis earlier this year.

"What we have done in the past year is to look a little more closely at the market potential for this type of seafood, although I had no doubt that it would be in very high demand," she says. "We started selling to selected restaurants from time to time in order to assess what the potential demand, and we got a very positive response.

"The restaurants sell scallops very quickly - 100 in a day is common - so there is a very high demand for a local seafood product. It has been very gratifying."

Dr. Sarkis is quick to point out, however, that BBSR has no plans to set up a commercial scallop aquaculture operation.

"We are not a self-sustaining programme," she stresses. "Based on models elsewhere in the world, to produce for consumption you need a commercial hatchery which produces the spat, and 'growers' who grow them in the field to market size."

Meanwhile, Dr. Sarkis says aquaculture activity in Bermuda could be a "really useful tool" in terms of boosting the depleted natural population, as has been indicated by the results thus far.

"What we do here at BBSR is aim to protect all the species that are low in numbers. The two types of scallops that we are working on are actually a protected species.

"Now what we have developed is ways to rear them so we are not only helping to maintain the population but also we have demonstrated the means for enhancing and propagating a species in Bermuda's inshore waters. That is one tool of aquaculture."

With the scallop aquaculture project in its final year, Dr. Sarkis says that BBSR has fulfilled its goals.

"We have researched and developed techniques for rearing a Bermudian marine species, and have demonstrated that aquaculture can be used as a tool in Bermuda for both conservation purposes, and for supplying a fresh seafood source. We have also begun the transfer of this technology to the private sector in hope of introducing a new activity to Bermudians."

In acknowledging BBSR's gratitude for the financial support given by corporate and private donations over the past three years, the marine scientist warns that, since the BBSR's goals have been achieved, the programme can no longer be supported by donations.

"In order for it to continue, it would have to be supported either by the Ministry of the Environment to pursue conservation and resource management goals, or by a private venture for the production of a reliable local seafood product," she says.