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Sea cucumber farms hurting gulf waters
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THE use of antibiotics, disinfectants and pesticides by sea cucumber farmers in northeast China has badly damaged the eco-system of the Bohai Gulf, according to China Central Television.
Chemicals are added to breeding pools to aid the growth of the echinoderms and fend off rival species, the report said on Tuesday.
However, when the pools are emptied, the pollutants flow directly into the sea, causing enormous damage to the maritime environment, it said.
Demand for sea cucumbers is soaring, but with natural stocks depleted, suppliers are increasingly turning to aquaculture.
In China, the practice is most common in the northeast of the country, in and around the city of Tianjin and the provinces of Hebei, Shandong and Liaoning.
“We give the young sea cucumbers all the drugs they need,” said a farmer from Dalian in Liaoning Province.
Pesticides are commonly used to treat bacterial infections, while penicillin and chloride compounds are applied to sterilize juveniles.
“We change the water in the feeding bases every three or four days,” a farmer said, adding that the old water is dumped straight into sea.
As a result, the local populations of cuttlefish and prawn have “died out,” a fisherman told the program.
When the larger “sea ranches” are cleaned every five years or so, farmers use calcium oxide, sodium hypochlorite and hydrogen peroxide as disinfectants, all of which are highly toxic to the local wildlife, the report said.
Dead fish are frequently found washed up near the ranches, while the polluted water also poses a serious threat to migratory birds, it said.
According to local researchers, the level of pollutants in waters close to sea cucumber ranches is often hundreds of times higher than in other maritime areas, CCTV said.
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