Arrow-right Camera
The Spokesman-Review Newspaper
Spokane, Washington  Est. May 19, 1883

Dry-land shrimp: Former mining engineer raises crustaceans amid Palouse lentils, wheat farms

Shrimp rest in the hands of Pat Vaughan, owner of Cowboy Shrimp. (Steve Hanks / Lewiston Tribune)
By Elaine Williams Lewiston Tribune

POTLATCH – The ocean is nowhere near Idaho’s first shrimp farm.

Cowboy Shrimp is on a hilly, gravel road edged by conifers, not far from a mothballed ammunition factory. It’s the business of Pat Vaughan, a mining engineer turned entrepreneur.

While Cowboy Shrimp is leading the way in Idaho, landlocked shrimp farms are becoming more common. The crustaceans are growing in states like Kentucky, Nebraska and Indiana within site of fields where traditional crops like corn and tobacco are planted.

Operators like Vaughan contend their businesses are an environmentally friendly way to feed Americans’ almost insatiable appetite for shrimp at a time when they are increasingly scarce in the wild.

The farms use a surprisingly small amount of water. Once the tanks where the shrimp live are filled, the water usually can be recycled. The concept is so prevalent a network of consultants has sprung up to support the industry, including one that Vaughan uses.

It was one of the other shrimp farms that drew Vaughan to the business. He was frustrated with his mining job when he stumbled on an article about a man selling farm-raised shrimp at a New York farmers market for $25 a pound.

At the time, Vaughan was working in Indonesia at one of the largest copper and gold mines in the world as it shifted from open pit to underground operations.

His job involved supervising a crew of about 4,500 workers who were doing jobs such as building warehouses and overseeing contracts involving millions of dollars.

The country was mired in civil conflicts, and some of the people in his crew belonged to different factions. Tensions were so high that workers would be taken from the airport to the mine in armored convoys or helicopters.

His wife stayed with him for the three years he was there. But she would spend summers on their property outside Potlatch, a place they found when one of their daughters was attending the University of Idaho.

As Vaughan read the story, he figured that shrimp farming couldn’t be any harder than what he was already doing.

His days are still long, and there is considerable risk in what he’s attempting. Yet Vaughan sees a huge upside.

“This has been easy and enjoyable, and I really like it because it’s for me and not for somebody else,” he said.

Vaughan is the only employee. He spent his first months re-creating the environment of the Pacific Ocean’s tropical coastal water in a nondescript white single-story building just down the hill from his house. He was so successful in creating a humid climate that it sometimes rained in the tank room as he was constructing it.

The shrimp arrive at Lewiston’s Federal Express in white Styrofoam boxes, about 25,000 at a time when they are 7 to 10 days old. They are barely visible, about the size of an eyelash. At first, they are housed in cylindrical containers small enough to fit in one of Vaughan’s hands.

As the shrimp get older, he transfers them into tanks. Later, they live in above-ground swimming pools. Heaters keep the water temperature at 80 to 84 degrees Fahrenheit. Modified plumbing and septic system equipment regulate bacteria levels and keep the current moving.

“People say it’s dirty, but it’s the water they live in,” Vaughan said.

His days are dictated by the needs of the shrimp. He gives the crustaceans a natural, but not organic product with fish parts like squid four times a day at 6 and 10 a.m., and 6 and 10 p.m., doing a fifth feeding for the youngest shrimp.

He runs through a series of water tests before the 10 a.m. feeding and looks for concentrations of things like bacteria, nitrates and ammonia. He documents everything and makes adjustments in how much he offers the shrimp to eat based on the results.

That part of his job takes about four hours a day if water conditions are good.

“All the shrimp do is eat and poop, so the water (can go) bad,” Vaughan said.

Usually he works about six more hours, making upgrades such as finishing the interior of his building so he can lead $5 tours to generate more income.

“Things go slowly,” Vaughan said. “It seems as if I have a million projects and none of them are done.”

If everything goes right, the shrimp are ready to harvest in about five months when they weigh about 20 grams, the size of a pinky finger. The first were sold to family and friends who paid about $18 a pound.

They are sold live with the heads on and don’t have to be frozen if they are kept refrigerated and cooked within three days. He sells them live so he doesn’t have to deal with government regulations that go with processing, Vaughan said, adding “The flavor is so sweet.”

Next year, he will likely transport shrimp in tanks to the Moscow Farmers Market.

Big and small things can go wrong. More than once, the nurseries he gets shrimp from couldn’t fill his orders because they had been hit by hurricanes.

One day when he was picking up shrimp in Lewiston, oxygen levels at the business got out of whack and his survival rate for that first batch dropped to about 25 percent.

He expects his survival rate for his current round to be about 55 percent – a great improvement, but still short of the 85 to 90 percent he’d like to reach.

He’s experimenting with nets and covers on the tanks, trying to reduce the number that jump out. Those shrimp are collected to be sold as fish bait for $6 a pound.

Vaughan has backup generators that turn on automatically during a power outage, but some equipment is on manual switches. In case of emergency, he has only five to 10 minutes to restart them before conditions start to deteriorate.

In spite of those challenges, Vaughan said he is happy with his career change.

“I probably could have retired and lived OK, but I wanted to keep my mind busy, and this is doing it.”