Participants in Utah's brine shrimp industry suffered a two-count financial blow from the 1997-98 harvest season, fewer eggs and the quality was down.
The Great Salt Lake's 1997-98 harvest season opened on Oct. 1 and was closed on Oct 27 when the 4.5-million-pound quota of raw, wet eggs was reached.
That volume of production compares very unfavorably to the two previous seasons, when over 14 million pounds of raw, wet eggs were taken from the Great Salt Lake in each season, and it is also well below the 10 million pound mark considered by some to be the average annual harvest over the last decade.
Raw eggs harvested at the opening of the 1997-98 season showed signs such as cracking that are indicative of a low hatch rate, as low as 50%. Some locations were starting to produce much higher quality when the quota was reached and harvesting closed.
The entire season's quality was less than expected. Overall the season was lesser quantity and lesser quality.
Despite the size of that potential loss, which could be measured in the millions of dollars by Utah's brine shrimp industry, there are broader questions facing the world's shrimp farmers: What impact will the poor harvest have on the availability and price of Artemia to shrimp hatcheries and what's the consequence to the supply of postlarvae for growout?
Brine shrimp companies tend to be very guarded about sharing their proprietary processing methods as well as price information. In times of scarcity, especially when they coincide with boom periods for shrimp farmers who may want to increase their production, Artemia prices can be volatile as the supply/demand equation is balanced.
That was the situation that unfolded in 1994 and 1995, when wholesale egg prices reached as high as $20 to $25 a pound, compared to the more typical range of $5 to $10 a pound.
While the price bonanza was shortlived, it contributed to the burgeoning harvest effort on the Great Salt Lake. The Utah Division of Wildlife Resources (DWR), which manages the brine shrimp resources, issued 29 fishing permits to 14 companies for 1994-1995 season. The next year, 63 permits were issued to 21 companies.
A three-year moratorium on new entrants to the fishery was put into effect with the 1996-1997 season.
The number of Certificates of Registration, CORs, was capped at 79, which are held by 32 companies. About one-third of those companies have the ability to process eggs.
While the level of harvest effort certainly impacts the brine shrimp biomass, environmental factors such as the amount of rainfall and overall lake salinity are also critically important.
According to a report by Clay Perschon, leader of the DWR's Great Salt Lake Project, the quota is set at a level that will allow about 5% to 20% of the cysts produced in the fall to be left in the lake to restart the population in the following spring.
The concern, however, is that no amount of management safeguards can spare the Great Salt Lake and its brine shrimp population from the negative consequences of the 1997-1998 El Nino rainfalls.
(excerpts from article by S. Jones in Fish Farming News, 5, January-February 1998)