Fishermen asked to watch for predatory tiger shrimp

• By AMY WOLD
• Advocate staff writer
• Published: Nov 27, 2009

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Louisiana fishermen are asked to continue to keep an eye out for and report any Asian tiger shrimp caught in Louisiana waters.

These large, non-native shrimp occasionally appear off the Louisiana coast, but so far they don’t seem to have established themselves.

Instead, the only confirmed tiger shrimp catches this year have been adults, said Marty Bourgeois, marine fisheries biologist with the state Department of Wildlife and Fisheries.

“We’re certainly on the lookout for it,” Bourgeois said. “At least this year we’ve gotten as many of eight or nine (reports) and these are specimens in hand.”

In 2007 there was one report of an Asian tiger shrimp, and in 2008 there was a handful of reports, he said.

However, that doesn’t necessarily mean there are more or less of the shrimp in state waters, he said. Instead, there has been an increase in awareness among fishermen to be on the look out for and report the shrimp, he said.

Others might have been sighted for several years but people just didn’t think to report it, Bourgeois said.

“Up until a few years ago, it’s the most frequent cultured shrimp in the world,” Bourgeois said.

More recently the Pacific white shrimp seems to be more popular for aquaculture purposes, he said.

So where are they coming from?

“That’s the most difficult question. What is the source?” Bourgeois said.

Although there was an escape of shrimp from an operation in South Carolina in 1988, these shrimp only have about a two-year life span. So far there’s no evidence that there are breeding populations in Louisiana, mainly because all the shrimp found have been adults.

There are a couple of possibilities of where they are coming from, including the notion they were brought here through ship ballast water or the shrimp are from the Caribbean Sea, where they are still cultivated, he said.