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SALT LAKE COUNTY — Salty. Smelly. Big. These are words often used to describe the Great Salt Lake. What many Utahns may not realize is that the Great Salt Lake also provides a profitable business.
At 75 miles long and 40 miles wide at one point, the Great Salt Lake is the biggest lake in the U.S. besides the Great Lakes, according to Great Salt Lake State Park harbor master Dave Shearer. It is also home to millions of brine shrimp that provide a multi-million dollar industry in the Salt Lake Valley.
Brine shrimp, also commonly known as “sea monkeys,” range from 8-millimeters to 1/2-inch long and thrive in salt water, Shearer said. They produce millions of eggs that are harvested each year in the Great Salt Lake by local companies, Great Salt Lake Brine Shrimp Cooperative and Ocean Star International, resulting in $30-$35 million in revenue each year, according to Brine Shrimp Cooperative chairman and CEO Don Leonard.
The two companies acquire permits for each of its boats and can harvest brine shrimp eggs, also known as cysts, from Oct. 1 to Jan. 31. The permits cost around $15,000 and the companies also pay a percentage on the revenue earned from the eggs, which goes to the Division of Wildlife Resources Great Salt Lake Ecosystem Program to help study the Great Salt Lake’s ecosystem, Shearer said.
The eggs typically collect in currents of the Great Salt Lake and float on the top of the water, creating a slick that looks similar to an oil slick, Shearer said. Scout boats are used to locate the slicks and once they claim the area, the larger boats come to harvest the eggs. The eggs are collected in bags and transported to the company headquarters where they are rinsed, sorted, dehydrated and canned, Shearer said.
The eggs are typically shipped to different areas of Asia and are sold as food for prawns and tropical fish species.
Leonard said brine shrimp eggs have been harvested from the Great Salt Lake for the past 50 years. The Great Salt Lake Brine Shrimp Cooperative was formed in 2006 as an aggregation of several companies that had been harvesting since the 1990s. The Great Salt Lake provides 35 percent of the world’s harvested brine shrimp eggs, Leonard said.
In order to protect and regulate the brine shrimp species, the DWR monitors the levels and puts a limit on the egg harvest each season, according to DWR conservation officer Wyatt Bubak. DWR officials determined that 21 eggs per liter of water need to be left in the Great Salt Lake to maintain a healthy population and if the levels drop too low, the harvest season is temporarily suspended or cut short.
Leonard said the Great Salt Lake Brine Shrimp Cooperative supports the regulation and even proposed some of the limitations to help keep the population healthy.
“It’s a great management program and it’s working really well to protect the species,” Leonard said. “In the early 90s, the state wasn’t limiting that and the industry went to the state and said, ‘Look, this is a fishery like any other fishery and can be depleted, so will you please step in and determine what we need to leave out there to make sure the population is healthy and strong?’ We provided funding for research to make that determination. And we support the regulatory scheme which cuts off our harvest some years.”
Along with monitoring the population levels, DWR officials team up with Utah State Park officials and do patrols around four times each season to check the harvest boats. The state officials ensure the boats and equipment are properly registered and fit the safety requirements, Shearer said.
