Four listed seafood companies have denied involvement in the violations exposed by China Central Television, which had reported sea cucumbers farmed in the Bohai Gulf are fed with banned antibiotics.
Dalian-based Zhangzidao Group Co Ltd and Keybridge Marine Seeds Co Ltd, along with Shandong-based Homey Aquatic Development Co Ltd and Oriental Ocean Group Ltd denied using antibiotics, according to news website www.chengdu.cn.
Sea cucumber stocks have been overfished in the wild. As demand for echinoderm grows, an increasing number of people started to raise them on farms. In China, most sea cucumber farms are in Tianjin City and the provinces of Hebei, Shandong and Liaoning.
Many sea cucumber farmers feed juveniles with antibiotics to increase their survival rate, CCTV revealed on Tuesday.
“We indeed use drugs, every kind of drug which sea cucumber juveniles need,” a female farmer in Dalian, Liaoning Province, was quoted as saying.
A male sea cucumber farmer said they usually use penicillin and medicinal chloride to sterilize juveniles.
Source:Shanghai Daily