ESTUARIES AND COASTAL ZONES 



of the University of Miami's Institute 

 of Marine Sciences, researchers are 

 developing techniques to rear pink 

 shrimp. There are seven ponds, 

 which range from one-quarter acre 

 to one acre, and a hatchery building 

 wherein the stock is raised from egg 

 to adult through the difficult larval 

 stages. The questions that research- 

 ers are asking is whether it is pos- 

 sible to mass-produce pink shrimp 

 with high survival and rapid growth 

 rates on an economic basis, what is 

 the best food for these shrimp, and 

 what are the costs for food and 

 labor. This research began a year or 

 two ago, and progress has been grati- 

 fying. Large numbers of young, es- 

 timated at about 10,000, have been 

 reared from the egg. 



Shrimp are also being raised to 

 market size in ponds and fenced-off 

 portions of a bay by a newly formed 

 company, near Panama City, Florida. 

 In this operation, between 10 and 20 

 million brown shrimp have been 

 reared from the egg to post-larval 

 stages. 



In a number of National Marine 

 Fisheries Service Laboratories (St. 

 Petersburg Beach, Fla.; Oxford, Md.; 

 Milford, Conn.; Panama City, Fla.; 

 and Galveston, Tex.), research on 

 mariculture beneficial to industry is 

 being carried out. At state universi- 

 ties on the Gulf of Mexico and up the 

 east coast of the United States, re- 

 search is also being conducted on 

 desirable species to provide industry 



with baseline information to allow 

 them to carry out commercial opera- 

 tions in sea farming. 



At the University of Miami's In- 

 stitute of Marine Sciences, a graduate 

 student has succeeded in rearing thir- 

 teen species of marine fish up to 

 their juvenile stages from eggs caught 

 drifting in the sea. Sea trout and 

 flounder are included in the list and 

 should attract the attention of sea 

 farmers. 



There is high hope for increased 

 study of aquaculture, but much more 

 research and investment will be nec- 

 essary before the important answers 

 are available for making decisions on 

 the economic advisability of entering 

 aquaculture on a large scale. 



253 



