Utah's Great Salt Lake: a lucrative natural hatchery for Artemia harvesters

摘要

The Great Salt Lake in Utah is too salty for fish: in the southern part, salinity jfequently runs at 120-170%0 and in the northern part it may go as high as 2700/000. Ocean salinity by contrast is 32- 35%. But the 14,400km~2 lake is so rich in high quality brine shrimp (Artemw(sa/ina) that the cysts are harvested, dried and sold to shrimp and fish hatcheries around the world, For more than two decades, says Donald Leonard, chairman of the Great Salt Lake Brine Shrine Cooperative and president of theUtah Artemia Association, the lake has yielded Artemia cysts that are known in the aquacultutre industry for thek quality and hatching rate, and the ease with which they can be 'revived* from dry storage and the naupEi used as live feed for fish and shrimp larvae