BLUFFTON -- A proposed partnership between Georgia and South Carolina natural resources officials could help both states protect and learn more about a popular saltwater game fish.

Spud Woodward, assistant director of the coastal division for the Georgia Department of Natural Resources, said Georgia wants South Carolina officials to help determine whether Georgia can stock red drum in its waterways -- similar to the program South Carolina has been experimenting with in its own waterways for several years.

Georgia doesn't have a facility that can handle breeding red drum, but it has offered to pay South Carolina to do the job at the Waddell Mariculture Center in greater Bluffton and at a facility in Charleston. The details are being worked out.

"If South Carolina was not willing to be a partner, this thing would be dead in the water," Woodward said. "The Waddell Mariculture Center is a place where all this can happen."

But the center's future is somewhat uncertain. Gov. Mark Sanford has proposed cutting all money for aquaculture research in South Carolina, including money used to run the center. Several local members of the General Assembly have vowed to fight to protect the center.

Al Stokes, the mariculture center's director, said the program would allow South Carolina to learn more about red drum by studying how they live in habitats along the Georgia coast, which can vary from those along the South Carolina coast.

"I think it's very exciting that states are willing to work together on a program," Stokes said. "Fish know no boundaries. They don't know the difference between South Carolina and Georgia."

Woodward said Georgia would take the parent fish from the Wassaw estuary near Savannah and move them to South Carolina. The Georgia fish would be bred to produce fingerlings, which would be returned to the same area.

He said the area doesn't have problems with the number of red drum yet, but studying how stocking changes the population could help if the fish population ever fell.

The program would last five years.

"We're real excited about it," Woodward said.