Bacterial diseases of penaeid shrimps: an Asian view.

The Philippines is an archipelago of more than 7,100 islands with 17,460 km of coastline including mangrove forests which covered about 450,000 ha in the 1920s. Coastal aquaculture began a few centuries ago when earthen ponds for the culture of milkfish (Chanos chanos) were first converted from mangrove swamps. For a long time, coastal aquaculture was synonymous with milkfish pond culture; while prawns and shrimps were incidental byproducts resulting from wild fry that entered the ponds during tidal water exchange. In 1943, studies on low density monoculture of the giant tiger prawn (Penaeus monodon) using wild fry were initiated at the Dagat-dagatan Experimental Station of the Bureau of Fisheries in Malabon, Rizal Province (Delmendo and Rabanal 1956). Information on the ecology and early life history of P. monodon generated by the Institute of Fisheries Research Development of the Mindanao State University (MSU-IFRD) in the early 1970s was used in setting up the first experimental prawn hatchery at IFRD. (DBO)