Giant Asian tiger shrimp invade US waters

giant tiger shrimp gulf of mexico
Screen capture The Wall Street Journal

Well, shrimp the size of your forearm are now a thing we can worry about.

Cameron McWhirter at The Wall Street Journal reports on the invasive predator shrimp that have recently been showing up in growing numbers in the Gulf of Mexico:

Scientists at the marine research lab on nearby Dauphin Island have identified the creature, now living in a blue bucket in a back room of the lab's aquarium, as something they haven't caught in Alabama waters before: a juvenile Asian tiger shrimp—an indication that the invasive species is now reproducing here and could threaten U.S. shrimp species, they say.

Adult tiger shrimp, whose native habitat stretches from southern Japan through Southeast Asia to South Africa, are known for distinctive black stripes, can grow to the length of a man's arm and weigh as much as a pound. While the monster shrimp are just as edible as U.S. shrimp, marine scientists are trying to figure out whether they will upset local ecosystems and possibly supplant smaller brown and white shrimp, mainstays of the U.S. shrimping industry.

Invasive species are always a problem because they did not evolve alongside the local species. The Asian tiger shrimp are especially worrisome bcause unlike regular US shrimp, which are scavengers, the tiger shrimp are aggressive predators that eat shrimp, crabs and clams. This screenshot from the WSJ video shows how much larger the tiger shrimp are than the white and brown shrimp that are native in US waters.

Joshua Peguero at PBS reports on how aquaculture may be to blame for initially introducing the exotic species to US waters:


Aquaculture facilities are land-based sites that conduct research, farm seafood and operate along the coast where there's easy access to water. Most of the animals raised there are non-native, a potential threat in the event of an escape.


Another contributing factor is that global warming is causes US coastal waters to warm, which is the habitat the Asian tiger shrimp prefer, allowing for them to more easily reproduce.

This is just one of countless examples that show just how important interconnectedness is to ecosystem balance. Growing exotic shrimp in an aquarium by the ocean seemed like a good idea at the time, but now a huge segment of the seafood industry in the Southeast United States may be at risk as a result.

Giant Asian tiger shrimp invade US waters
Well, giant shrimp the size of your forearm are now a thing we can worry about.

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