Cooking & EatingLarge shrimps in the Dutch supermarket usually come from shrimp mothers with an eye cut off. Due to the mutilation, they would produce more eggs, as can be seen tonight in the TV broadcast of Inspection Service of Value.
According to emeritus professor of animal physiology Gert Flik, called the ‘shrimp professor’ in the broadcast, it is a normal practice in the world of shrimp farming. “Hormones are made in the shrimp’s eye stem that inhibit normal processes. So if you remove that brake, the shrimp grow faster and the egg production in females is increased.”
According to Flik, this has been happening since the 1970s, when shrimp were farmed on a large scale. ,,If the growers have the facilities in house to do it properly, they will certainly do that. Millions of tons are being grown, that amount can no longer be caught.”
Many Dutch fish sellers and shrimp importers are not aware of this method, according to questions from the program. They don’t know what’s going on in shrimp farms, especially in the Far East. Most of the consumer shrimps on Dutch shelves come from there.
It only hurts a little bit for a day
Disoriented and confused
In Thailand, the makers of Inspection Service of Value guest of a shrimp farmer who shows how one of the eyes of a female shrimp is cut off. “If we cut off the eye, they can reproduce every week. If we don’t, it will take longer than two weeks.” He is laconic about the burden that the shrimps have: “It only hurts a little bit for a day.”
Anne Hilhorst of Lekker Dier sees it differently. “They swim around disoriented and confused. In this way, they are limited in their long-term development. You make a shrimp that will lay eggs much earlier and much younger and that is exactly what the breeder wants.”
The broadcast of Inspection Service of Value: Thursday 6 October at 20.25 on NPO 3.
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