Mustafa and friends please chime in. the LFS I bought my new shrimp from told me that they buy from breeders that use a method where they cordon off wild areas to breed the shrimp because they cannot breed them in a tank. They don't go shrimping in the wild. Supposed to be like what folks do to breed the shrimp some ppl eat - I don't think I can eat shrimp anymore
I have not researched this and would like to hear from you before I do.
Just as an aside the person I spoke to told me he had a couple of vampire shrimp that lived nearly 10 years, wow!
I am very impressed with them, with my bum leg I had to have animals shipped instead of driving up and most animals were in good shape on arrival. Warning if you order animals vs plants - they charge labor for animals so the $15 fee is only for shipping. It cost me $48 for labor and shipping on 22 shrimp and 12 fish. They are replacing the 3 lost shrimp and the lost vampire shrimp free of chg and no questions asked.
I don't know that, if the shrimp areas include river and areas where sea water and the river water mix it could be true. the question is, how to find out.
I doubt that they breed in their enclosure. My guess is that they have a screened off section of wild area that captures upward migrating postlarvae. When the shrimp in the enclosure are large enough, they are harvested. Meanwhile, there's always a mix of sizes because small individuals are constantly finding their way in the enclosure. Perhaps they keep some large individuals in there so they'll breed and their larvae are swept into the ocean. It's sort of like free-range ranching (?).... it's hard to say how environmentally conciously any particular operation might be doing it. But it's probably better than finding the most populated areas in the wild and completely raiding them. They're still taking from the wild population... though if their enclosure allows for much greater survivorship by keeping them safer from predators, it helps make up for harvesting from the wild.
