Special Edition: Hocking College Freshwater Shrimp Harvest

I've completed several aquaculture & fish management classes through Hocking College in Nelsonville, Ohio, and one of my favorite days is helping out during the annual Fall harvest of the freshwater shrimp (Giant Malaysian Prawns) from a pond at Hocking's hatchery near Lake Snowden. Here's a look back at the 2009 harvest. (Special thanks to my friend John Chang for taking these great photos!)

The pond is first slowly drained, and most of the shrimp follow the falling water line into a catch basin called the kettle.

There are always some stragglers - shrimp that get trapped in the mud.

Some of the students and volunteers (that's me in the middle) locate the stragglers and move them to the basin.

Once the pond is drained, the shrimp must be captured with seines and transported to large aerated holding tanks in one of the hatchery's buildings.

Transporting the shrimp is done in these baskets.

Here's a good look at some of the prawns.

Finally, some years you find some uninvited guests in the nets.