Commercial Harvest
In recent years, the sea cucumber industry in Alaska has increased due to increased export of the skins and muscles to China.
In China, sea cucumbers are farmed commercially in artificial ponds. These ponds can be as large as 1,000 acres (400 ha), and satisfy much of the local demand. Wild sea cucumbers are caught by divers and these wild Alaskan sea cucumbers have higher nutritional value and are larger than farmed Chinese sea cucumbers. Larger size and higher nutritional value has allowed the Alaskan fisheries to continue to compete for market share, despite the increase in local, Chinese sea cucumber farming.
One of Australia's oldest fisheries is the collection of sea cucumber, harvested by divers from throughout the Coral Sea in far North Queensland, Torres Straits and Western Australia. In the late 1800s there were as many as 400 divers operating from Cooktown, Queensland. The main target species today are White Teat Fish, Black Fish and Sand Fish, caught by divers in waters as deep as 40 meters.
Read more about this topic: Sea Cucumber
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