154 



Fishery Bulletin 93(1). 1995 



with caution. The VBGM applied to length-at-age 

 data for captive dolphin in Hawaii is 



L, = 169.6 cm [l^r - 72,( -° 068) ] (Fig. 4). 



The calculated VBGM for weight is 



W t = 58.41 kg [l-e-° 72 ,M)068) ] 307 . 



The feed conversion ratio (FCR) of juveniles up to 

 three months of age was 1.1 (dry feed/live fish), and 

 averaged 1.6 for the entire period studied. 



Discussion 



There have been several reports of growth rates of 

 wild and captive dolphin, as well as of wild caught 

 fish kept in captivity for various periods of time. 

 Beardsley (1971) reported that a wild caught juve- 

 nile kept in captivity grew from one to 35 lb in one 

 year. Schekter (1983) recorded a growth rate of 4.3 kg 

 (from 0.7 to about 5 kg) in 30 days. In Barbados, dol- 

 phin may reach lengths of over 80 cm in 5.5 months 

 and over one meter in less than one year (Oxenford 

 and Hunte, 1986). In Hawaii, they also attain a length 

 of over one meter at the end of the first year (Uchiyama 

 et al., 1986). By applying the length-weight regression 

 of Rose and Hassler (1968) to these data, it would cor- 

 respond to a mass of about 8 kg in one year. 



The growth rates presented in this study (4.93 kg 

 and 75.8 cm in 9.5 months) are lower than many of 

 those reported for wild and cultured dolphin in the 

 literature. This may be due to the diet fed to the ex- 

 perimental fish. For instance, Kraul (1989) reported 

 growth rates of 2 kg in 6 months and 9 kg in one 

 year for dolphin that were fed fish and squid in tanks 

 in Hawaii, and of 5.4 kg in 8.7 months for fish reared 

 under identical circumstances but fed commercially 

 available pellets (Kraul and Ako, 1993). 



The data suggest that captive dolphin grow slower 

 than their wild counterparts. Yet, even when they 

 are fed artificial diets, growth rates of captive dol- 

 phin are among the fastest recorded for teleosts. The 

 specific growth rate (SGR) of dolphin reported in this 

 work (4.3%-10 body weightd -1 ), by Ostrowski et al. 

 (1992) (10.7-13.3% bwd" 1 ), and by Iwai et al. (1992) 

 (9.3-13.0% bw-d -1 ) are much higher than those of 

 other marine and brackish water fish raised in cap- 

 tivity. For instance, SGR of the common snook, 

 Centropomus undecimalis; barramundi, hates calcar- 

 ifer; hybrid sea bass, Morone spp. ; Nassau grouper, 

 Epinephelus striatus; spotted seatrout, Cynoscion 

 nebulosus; red drum, Sciaenops ocellatus (Tucker, 

 1989); three species of mullets, Liza ramada (El- 

 Sayed, 1991), Mugil liza, and M. curema (Benetti and 

 Fagundes Netto, 1991); and the common grouper, E. 

 guaza (Fagundes Netto and Benetti, 1984) range 

 from 0.55 to 3.46% of their body weight per day. 



The absolute growth rate (AGR) in length of wild 

 and captive dolphin vary between 0.1-0.58 cmd -1 



6000 

 5000 

 40004 



-§,3000 



5 



2000- 



1000 



Y = 0.087 X 2 • 10.93 X + 321 .62 



r ' = 0.98 

 n = 141 



-i — T^ — i 1 1 — ' 1 ' 1 <~ 



60 120 180 240 300 360 



Age (days) 



Figure 2 



Growth in weight of captive dolphin, Coryphaena hippurus, 

 in Hawaii. 



