National Lobster Hatchery in Padstow

If a fisherman (or woman) catches a female lobster laden down with eggs (the eggs can be found on the underside of the female) then the Lobster Hatchery will pay for the lobster to be brought in if they have room in their hatchery.

The Hatchery's aim is to conserve lobsters and the industry and to make sure they don't get overfished.

Laws have recently been brought in that stop fishermen from catching lobsters under a certain size - well they can catch them but they have to throw them back into the water again afterwards.

Lobster eggs usually hatch at night - the hatched larvae swim away from their mother and they're then collected by the staff at the hatchery.

The hatched babies are fed plankton and have to be kept in separate "cells" of clean filtered water because lobsters are aggressive and cannabalistic.

The babies will shed their skin as they grow and start to look more like adult lobsters.

Apparently in the wild fewer than 1% of hatched lobsters will survive the first couple of weeks. In the lobster hatchery around 40% survive.

When the lobsters are around three months old they're big enough and ugly enough to look after themselves and they're released back into the wild in the waters of Cornwall and the Scilly Isles.

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