- cross-posted to:
- nonpolitical_comics@piefed.social
- cross-posted to:
- nonpolitical_comics@piefed.social
The industry calls it “eyestalk ablation”—a method used to force female shrimp to reproduce faster. According to shrimp welfare project : “Researchers discovered that when shrimps are subjected to ESA, they try to escape it. They also flick their tails and rub their eye area. When the wounds are covered or medicine is given, the shrimps calm down. This suggests that the ablation caused them pain and distress. Ablated females’ offspring are less tolerant of stress. They are also more likely to get diseases. There are many possible stress factors for animals in aquaculture. These include handling, crowding, high stocking densities and poor water quality. Eyestalk ablation is one more thing that worsens their welfare.”
Yikes. I tried keeping shrimp for a bit, and they are very interesting animals. Keeping a small scale aquatic ecosystem balanced can be very tricky.
Thankfully this practice seems to be something the industry is looking at moving away from, and a lot of research is being done to better understand their reproductive cycle. It sounds like Best Aquaculture Practice (BAP) label shrimp will have to not use eyestalk ablation by 2030. Studying shrimp hormone production, along with better nutrition and water quality will hopefully end this process.
I found this industry article from Hatchery Feed and Management discussing the 2030 cutoff, and there are some links at the bottom that briefly cover different studies and research being done to come up with something better for shrimp and shrimp producers.
It’s crazy how little we have really studied animals up until this point in time, though to be fair, it’s only been about 150 years since germ theory became commonly understood, so we have really been throwing darts at understanding how we ourselves function until very recently.