The Utah’s Great Salt Lake’s coastal line puts another body of water, from pink to deep sea blue. In the fall, its surface turns with gold spots-made of millions of saline eggs called cysts. These small golden spots play a decisive role in both the local ecosystems and global aquatic biology, and nourish everything from vegetables covered with migratory ear along the Pacific Pass to the thickness of the cultivated salmon in Norway.
Shrimp Liel Lake Brain The hunting industry is worth $ 60 million annually, hiring approximately 150 seasonal workers in northern Utah, every season. Fishing provides approximately 45 percent of the world’s wild shrimp harvest and golden eggs that are exported to commercial fisheries on almost every continent.
These small crustaceans also support a local environmental system that maintains millions of migratory birds that feed during critical stopping. Although these two needs may appear in a conflict, the management of the science list Great fisheries, Solt Lake, have turned a global case In sustainable fishing that balances the requirements of both people and wildlife.
Most people have heard about a brine as “sea monkeys”, which is the severity of children known as hatching when added to the water. However, commercial aquatic farming discovered that salty shrimp was an inexpensive way to feed farm fish and shrimp. Fish now exceeds the number of wild fish, which creates a global demand for cysts. Today, a fleet of boats revolves in the lake every year, storing salty shrimp eggs from water and transporting them to dryers on the beach, where they are taught and sold all over the world. Under the appropriate circumstances, it can be stored for years before hatching, a biological feature that is protected by the aquatic education industry.
During the nine years in which the salty shrimp sector, Tim Hawks, Chairman of the Great Salt Lake Shrimp Coperookive, watched that the industry is threatening, with the stability of brusher shrimp groups – which makes this critical food source more predictable to the wildlife that depends on it. He said: “This is a great example of how good commercial management can create wins for the environment.” “If the salty shrimp hunting industry will disappear tomorrow, it will harm the Great Ecological Ecological System.”
Great Solt Lake Artia
Before commercial hunting on the lake, the salty shrimp was held in the Choater. Population explosions sometimes wear natural food sources, which then caused severe decreases in the number of brine in the following season – which creates an unreliable food source for migratory birds. “The harvest is blessed with the levels of the population in the salty shrimp, so they do not have this boom and the step,” said John Loff, director of the Great Salt Lake Ecosystem with the Wildlife Resources Department.
The harvesting strategy here is also different from many commercial fisheries that are hunting in the wild, which often works from the specified classes before the start of the season. Here on Great Salt Lake, fish fishermen’s managers depend on the weekly updated data. Utah opens and closes the saline shrimp season based on regular samples to determine the optimal concentration of the remaining shrimp eggs in the lake water. The crews with the wildlife resources department in the state complete the circle of the lake every week, as they collected samples in 17 stations. Again in the laboratory, the technicians calculate the number of brippy eggs under the microscope, then share the numbers with the organizers and harvest.
Years of experiments show that 21 eggs of saline shrimp per liter of water are optimal in the next season opening. When the weekly charges approach this threshold, the agency requests boats from water. “We need to make sure that we do not bear the formulation of brine shrimp at the expense of wildlife,” said Loft.
The return of this management strategy is a stable nutritional source. “When I started for the first time in the early first decade of the twentieth century, if we saw a million migratory birds on the Great Lake Salt, that was so much. Now we get between four to five million every season,” said Loft. Wildlife managers are credited with the fixed food supplies that were created by the harvesting of salty shrimp that are controlled for the increase.
Goodly managed regional fisheries can inspire such administrative practices better around the world. It was just released Maritime Supervision Council Preserving the life of the ocean a report The most prominent of this fisheries as a model for sustainable harvest. “Great Salt Lake Fishery is a great example of the approach to scientific management based on the ecosystem,” said Beth Polidoro, research scientist and research manager who helped create the report. “They not only look at the targeted species, but also the other types that depend on them, and they limit their harvest to support the entire ecosystem.”
But while the fisheries management is a resounding success story, other threats, such as drought and increased salinity. In 2022, severe dehydration took water levels to a low level and increased the salinity of the lake, confirming both the salty shrimp and algae they eat.
Justin Sullivan / Getty Emp
The state’s active salinity management program helped temporarily reduce salt levels, but low water levels still represents a dangerous challenge. Studies are able to have already lost the lake More than 70 percent of its historical size Due to human water transfers and warming trends. If the lake levels continue to decrease, evaporation will increase the levels of salt outside the tolerance of shrimp.
Lux worries about another climate scenario, also: with increased global temperatures, the most moderate winter of the lake may not freely freeze to the degree of shrimp -solution eggs. He said: “If the cold does not emerge enough, then I am concerned that the salty shrimp will not produce cysts.”
While the future may be uncertain, legislators are taking action now. Utah has started Financing wet land restoration and water rights contracts New flows can be directed to the lake. The industry is working closely with state organizers, and exchanging extensive data with the state to help inform the main decisions regarding the health of the lake. Hawks believes that public support is very important. He warned, “One of the hot and dry summer will put us close to the risk levels.”
Conservation efforts, such as water conservation, can play a major role. LUFT provides a simple exercise: “If every family in the region provides 100 gallons annually can be directed to the lake, then this will have a major impact.” Choose seafood with Trusted sustainability certificate Seafood producers worldwide pushing the useful management practices that already work in Great Salt Lake.
MSC’s Polidoro sees a mold in making. “We have the flag we need to manage sustainable fisheries,” she said. “The challenge is to get it there and adopt it.” These tools already work on Great Salt Lake, which indicates the strength of science -based management, and a plan for sustainable fish fisheries everywhere.
The Maritime Supervision Council (MSC) is an international non -profit organization, working with more than 700 fisheries all over the world, which determines globally recognized standards for sustainable fish hunting and seafood supply chain. The MSC program stimulates the adoption of sustainable fishing practices and helps to create a more sustainable market for seafood. For more information, please visit Msc.org.
