Island School students, Aldis, Brett, and Sara are doing a human ecology project that utilizes the cobia harvesting waste into livestock feed and fertilizer, trying to further close the loop in our sustainable model here at CEI/IS.  The fish silage will be used to feed the pigs and tilapia, as well as a fertilizer at the farm.

This was the first harvest of cobia in 2011. A total of 90 cobia were harvested, weighed, and hand filleted by Aldis, Brett, Sara, Luis, Matt, and Easton. The remaining cobia carcasses were ground up by hand using a meat grinder. The resulting slur was placed in a plastic drum, while Sara added muriatic acid Brett did the honors of stirring everything evenly, despite the fumes.

The silage was then left to break down into a protein soup, with plans to be used as fertilizer in our garden at The Island School.  This may seem fairly gruesome and sad to some, but not us! The harvesting-silage team was overly excited and kept happy with good company and good tunes- a little James Brown and Bob Marley!