NIFS announced that it saw the possibility for endangered Yongdashima＊ to recover by discovering the growth of one to three-year-old dragon kelp in the offshore the coast of Gangneung in its on-site survey in early August. 

Yongdashima found in this on-site survey is what NIFS has been cultured every year since 2021 by applying its own technique for Yongdashima rearing and management. The growth per age (from one to three-year-old Yongdashima) has been stable, but it is the first time to find a three-year-old frond.

＊Yongdashima (dragon kelp) is the perennial large brown algae, living at 20-30m depth of water in the north Gangneung. Its production amount in the 1990's used to be 1,000 tons per year, but it was considered being endangered after 2010 due to habitat destroying and indiscriminate gathering. But with NIFS succeeding in developing the mass production technology for artificial seed of dragon kelp in 2021, the technology was selected as one of the 2022’s Top 100 research achievements by the Ministry of Science and ICT, and has been distributed to fishers til now.