Just when you thought it was safe to go back in the Gulf of Mexico, a new menace, this one striped like a big cat, is preying on aquatic life: The black tiger shrimp.
The biggest saltwater shrimp in the world, black tigers “are cannibalistic as are other shrimp but it’s larger so it can consume the others,” Tony Reisinger, country extension agent for the Texas Sea Grant Extension Service, told CNN on Friday.
Because of the threat of disease, the predatory intruder poses a problem for the native shrimp and oyster population of the Gulf, Reisinger said.
"Our oystermen right now are hurting because the oyster season is shut down due to a red tide. But this (black tiger) shrimp poses other concerns,” he said.
Appearing more than 25 years ago, the black tiger’s sudden reappearance is a mystery.
“The first time they started appearing was in the late 1980s on the East Coast,” he said. “Then they disappeared in 1991.”
But following the record-breaking hurricane season of 2005, which brought successive monster storms Katrina, Rita and Wilma, they started showing up again, he said.
“They’re well over 1,000 of them in the Gulf of Mexico now,” he said. “We’ve had five of them caught off Texas.”
Reisinger said he spoke to the Brownsville-Port Isabel Shrimp Producers Association recently to warn them about the shrimp but he was too late.
“It turns our fishermen have been catching them for a while, but they didn’t think they were marketable so they were throwing them back,” he said.
Is there a harvestable population already established in the Gulf? What does that mean for the Louisiana and South Texas shrimp and oyster industry? Many questions remain, Reisinger said.
According to Wikipedia they are very edible. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Giant_Tiger_Shrimp
They look ABSOLUTELY delicious!!!
I'd BBQ that son of a bltch so fast he wouldn't know what hit him.
just another way BP can say they didn`t screw up the fisheries and blame something else for it
Bubba Gump Shrimp Co is all over this
Grilled with butter and garlic...MMmmm tasty!
I love shrimps, how do they count them? maybe there is some kind of chemicals that are making them fat and big
just like your mom
REPORTED
Sounds like time to have a BBQ.
Now I'm hungry.
how come when black people try and say the word "shrimp" it always comes out "swimp"?
I have always wondered about that too, but I was always afraid to ask because I didn not want to be called a racist. Thank you for bringing this important issue tot he forefront.
I'm in Memphrica. down here we calls dem 'skrimp'
ROTFL!!! Not all black people pronounce it swimp, just the one's who were never corrected and have no idea how ignorant it sounds. I've also heard white people pronounce is skrimp, and that always drives me nutty! BTW I am black...
It not is sorry about the typo!
I, for one, welcome our new man-eating shrimp overlords....
maybe if we are all lucky, they will eat you.
Noted.
Clearly Dick Brody is not a Simpsons fan...
delicious
The shrimpers thought a 12 inch shrimp wasn't marketable? Dip that in some buffalo sauce and blue cheese and wrap it in a hoagie roll. My god that would make a nice lunch.
Looks good! I'll eat it.
Didn't they think "they are marketable?" You've got to be kidding! Shrimp lovers like me would love to have a whopper like that on my plate!
Stripped black tiger prawns close to 10 inches long are nothing new. They exist in salt water as well as fresh water The later verity are imported into the US in some 100 tons each year from India, Pakistan. Vietnam. Thailand and other parts of South America etc. 1000 or even 10,000 in the Gulf of Mexico, considering the size of that body of water is a drop in the bucket. May these LA and TX yahoos need to catch a few and start cultivating them for their meat.
I would be more then happy to help keep them under contol with some shrimp sauce.
Sent them my way..
1000 of these is a menace? That doesn't seem like much as far as shrimp numbers go. Those shrimp boats can pull in 1000 shrimp in one net.