Vietnam mass Mortalities

 

In 2011, the first shrimp crop of the season was a disaster. Now, in the Mekong Delta, the heart of the country’s shrimp farming industry, the first shrimp crop of the 2012 season is experiencing mass mortalities. No one knows what is causing the problem, but most blame the mortalities on intake water polluted with row crop pesticides, like cypermethrin, permethrin, chlorpyrifos and fipronit, all of them toxic to aquatic animals, especially shrimp, at concentrations as low as 0.005 parts per billion. Early mortality syndrome, a new disease that is killing shrimp elsewhere inSoutheast Asia, has not been mentioned as a possible cause of the mortalities.

In 2011, after the disastrous first crop, shrimp farmers in the Mekong Delta had one of their best years ever.

Sources: 1. Seafood.com (an online, subscription-based, fisheries news service). Editor and Publisher, John Sackton (phone 1-781-861-1441 begin_of_the_skype_highlighting 1-781-861-1441 end_of_the_skype_highlighting, email jsackton@seafood.com). Vietnam Officials Raise Specter of Mekong Shrimp Crop Failures Due to Disease, Pollution. March 7, 2012. 2. Bob Rosenberry, Shrimp News International, March 8, 2012.

 

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