Twenty prawns to two hundred thousand

25 November 2026

Part 15 of 18 · A history of the giant freshwater prawn

Over the summer of 2025–26, about twenty adult giant freshwater prawns were collected near Cooktown, on Cape York, and driven some 1,900 kilometres south to the Sunshine Coast. At the University of the Sunshine Coast, Associate Professor Tomer Ventura and his PhD students had built a hatchery and nursery to receive them. The aim was 10,000 young prawns. The result was about 200,000.[1]

Ventura said that was enough to stock a farm, not just a pond, and the university described it as what is “believed to be the first commercial-scale production of this prawn … in Australia”.[1] The team was producing up to 200 grams a day of live brine shrimp to feed the larvae, testing other feeds, and its students had taken the prawns through the full cycle, from breeding adults to larvae and back to breeding adults. The young prawns were to go back north, to grow out in ponds on Cape York.[1] (Tomer Ventura is also SHRMP.bio’s coach in CSIRO’s Innovate to Grow programme, as the Prologue says.)

The ponds belong to the Hope Vale Foundation, a not-for-profit wholly owned by the Hope Vale community. It began with blacklip oysters, and set up a research and development farm outside Cooktown, on Waalmbaal Birri, the Endeavour River.[2][3] Its innovation and commercialisation manager, Tony Matchett, leads the prawn venture.[4] The partnership with the university runs through the Queensland Government’s Regional University Industry Collaboration program, which CSIRO delivers, and the Foundation keeps the commercial lead.[2]

It has moved quickly. In February 2026, Hope Vale presented its plans at evokeAG in Melbourne. In June, it won a $500,000 grant from the Coles Nurture Fund, one of four Queensland producers sharing $2 million, to build its own hatchery and grow-out ponds on its 19-hectare farm.[3][4] Hope Vale describes itself as “the first to progress towards commercialisation”.[5] Each “first” in this story, Derby’s included (Part 14), is true in its own words.

And Hope Vale says something else, plainly: Australia has no commercial production of this prawn yet.[5] That is the word the series started with, in the title of its Prologue. On Cape York, the yet is getting shorter.

But the Australian prawn itself has one more story to tell. Its scientific name took an international ruling to settle.

Sources

1. University of the Sunshine Coast (March 2026), Prawn baby boom could crack new market. About 20 adults trucked about 1,900 km from near Cooktown; an aim of 10,000 post-larvae and a result of about 200,000; “believed to be the first commercial-scale production”; live brine shrimp; the full cycle; juveniles returning to Hope Vale. unisc.edu.au
2. CSIRO (February 2026), case study: Hope Vale and the giant prawn. The Regional University Industry Collaboration program; commercial leadership; Waalmbaal Birri. csiro.au
3. National Indigenous Times (2026). The Hope Vale Foundation, blacklip oysters, the research and development farm, evokeAG.
4. Coles Group (17 June 2026), Coles Nurture Fund media release. $500,000 to the Hope Vale Foundation; four Queensland producers sharing $2 million; the 19-hectare farm; Tony Matchett.
5. Cape York Weekly (2026), Coles Nurture Fund grant. “The first to progress towards commercialisation”; no commercial production in Australia yet. capeyorkweekly.com.au

Part 15 of 18 · A history of the giant freshwater prawn · Previous: Part 14, Jarramba: the Kimberley’s giant prawn · Next: Part 16, The prawn that lost its name, twice · SHRMP.bio’s strategy behind it: shrmp.bio/strategy.html