Shrimp Farming Essay, Research Paper
Shrimp Farming
Shrimp Aquaculture is the farming of shrimp in hatcheries, which control the lighting, temperature, salinity, hormonal cycles, and nutrients. This article contains background information on shrimp farming. In addition it includes information about the supposed endangerment of the wild shrimp population. The primary objective of all shrimp farmers is to develop an environmentally friendly shrimp farm. And a 100% eco-friendly shrimp farm, a shrimp farm with no effect on the environment is not far in the future. Today, the only way it could be done was with zero exchange ponds.
Shrimp farmers are now producing an average of 14,000,000 pounds per acre per crop, with 244.4 crops per year. They are using technology that could be deployed in any warm climate. So shrimp don’t have to be at sea level or anywhere near the coast. Now farming can be done in the middle of the Sahara Desert. All drainage canals lead in to settling basins; there is no drainage directly to the lagoon. Everything that goes through the farm goes into a settling basin where, after a week, or so, it can be discharged into the
lagoon or pumped back to the ponds. All the dikes are planted with St. Augustine grass which prevents erosion. Once the ponds are filled, there is no seepage. The ponds used are mandatory to be lined with black, 30 to 40 mil, high-density, polyethylene liners. They are able to harvest the small ponds in 30 minutes and the one-acre ponds in three hours. The day after harvest they clean up the little patches of sludge. Three days later they restock the shrimp. One disease that has affected us is a hepatopancreatic disease caused by the endocellular bacterium rickettsia. As many as 85% of individual shrimp have been effected when certain TR strains were stocked. A number of bioassays mussels, clams, etc.) have been studied to determine where the rickettsia was coming from, but, to date, though they have not found the vector. The shrimping industry has concluded hypotheses that this is caused by a protozoa. Through millions of dollars of research, they even hope to find a cure for this disease. The industry is willing to spend 6.7 million dollars alone this coming fiscal year in order to cure a disease that doesn’t even affect humans. I don’t think a heartless business would go to such lengths. The shrimp industry is perceived as a business that negatively impacts environment and cannot be sustained over a long period of time. Since 1996, Aquaculture has found ways and concepts of developing and demonstrating that a farm could be economically operated on a sustained basis and not harm the environment. This past year farm operations clearly demonstrated that shrimp can be economically grown using technologies that do not result in environmental deterioration. The key to successfully implementing this technology is to use shrimp stocks that are virus-free and adapted to intensive, nutrient rich, zero exchange ponds, ponds that are deep and lined. Some hatcheries have demonstrated that shrimp farming could be successful on the savanna pine ridge terrain of Southern Belize, using technologies that did not require large quantities of water, could be developed and operated in a way that would minimize the negative impact on the surrounding environment and could be sustained over a long period of time. Research and development such as this has not only been profitable to the shrimping businesses but has enabled wild shrimp to be introduced to new environments. This will replace the speculated numbers of past killed shrimp larvae that the animal activists. Soils used in shrimp farming consist primarily of deposits of coastal sand and clay, that are acidic, low in essential nutrients and high in aluminum. The majority of the hatchery land is higher than 20 feet above sea level, thereby reducing the threat from hurricanes, which claim trillions of wild shrimp in the Pacific Ocean. The Facilities are designed for flexible water management. If necessary, they can exchange 15% of water a day. The seawater reservoir feeds water to the hatchery and the ponds. Seawater can be pumped directly to the ponds or can be gravity fed to the settling basins where it can be fertilized and aged and then pumped to the ponds. During the dry season when salinities increase to stressful levels, fresh creek water can be pumped to the settling basins. Water from the creek and the lagoon is passed through a filter bag to remove fish, crabs, and other stuff. The shrimping industry has no desire to harm other organisms caught in the process. All pond drainage canals lead to the settling basins, so that when ponds are harvested, all the water can be retained, settled, and pumped back to the ponds. The shrimping industry continues to do everything in their power to make aquaculture farming an environmentally friendly, and sustainable. The shrimping industry does not only work for profit but also for the production of a public demanded product safely and efficiently.