September 13, 2013 — All look great but please use this for the pull quote on the tiger shrimp post:
Asian tiger shrimp are native to the western Indo Pacific, where they are a popular aquaculture species.
How they reached North Carolina is unclear. Some have escaped from an aquaculture facility. Others could have been swept on ocean currents from wild populations in the Caribbean or ship ballast waters.
As an invasive species, there are concerns about impacts on the native shrimp, displacing them from their natural habitat. There can also be transmissions of disease.
It was big enough for a meal, but the unusual catch was better off in the hands of researchers.
“That shrimp was definitely big enough for a shrimp dog, but we froze it instead,” said Mary Bryan Carlyle, who was with a group of friends who caught a jumbo Asian tiger shrimp this week in Carteret County waters.
Carlyle said they were in a canal at the mouth of the Broad Creek, out to catch some shrimp for a Labor Day dinner. When Jacob Clark pulled in his cast net, there was the one tiger shrimp and green tails, which they were after.
They had seen pictures of tiger shrimp and guessed this huge, black shrimp, which Carlyle estimated was 8 inches long, was one of them. They turned it over to Carlyle’s neighbor, who works at the N.C. Division of Marine Fisheries, so she could pass it on to biologists to confirm.
The report is the latest of only a handful so far this year. The three other reports have been from Hubert, Oak Island and Oriental.
Those few reports may not indicate tiger shrimp are scarce in Eastern North Carolina waters, however.
Dr. James Morris, a marine ecologist at NOAA's Center for Coastal Fisheries and Habitat Research in Beaufort, said reports tend to drop as fishermen become more familiar with a species.
"People get used to them," he said. "They've seen them before and don't tend to report sightings."
Morris, who conducts research on invasive species, said tiger shrimp are seen more in the fall and more reported sightings could appear. However, he said, they may need to look at new strategies for gauging the presence of the tiger shrimp, such as the use of monitoring programs by fisheries agencies.
But research to-date indicates tiger shrimp have a presence in North Carolina waters.
"It's a little early this time of year for sightings, but we're still seeing them and they are widespread," Morris said.
Asian tiger shrimp are native to the western Indo Pacific, where they are a popular aquaculture species.
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