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Old 01-03-2012, 01:31 PM   #4
Hank49
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Join Date: May 2005
Location: Stann Creek, Belize
Age: 68
Posts: 1,939
Re: Giant shrimp raises big concern as it invades the Gulf

The article states that possible introduction could be from the farms in Central America due to recent flooding. I am not aware of any farms growing monodon in this region.
They were introduced into Colombia I believe years ago and some may have escaped. I've caught a few in our harvests here recently. We take down a pond of Pacific White Shrimp and have seen some monodon, which had to have come in from the sea.
White spot virus did come into this part of the world by introducing them here. And now, IMNV, a virus that was in Brazilian farmed Pacific White Shirmp (p Vannamei) is now in Indonesia due to someone shipping broodstock from Brazil to there as SE Asian shrimp farms changed over to Vannamei. Moving live shrimp around the world had the same effect as when the first Europeans sailed into the South Pacific. The Tahitians all started dying of flue and other diseases that Euros were used to.

This has been going on for over 25 years now. Like the Lionfish invasion, we'll just have to see what happens. The good thing, I believe, for the environment is that shrimp aren't big time predators. They're more the cockroaches of the sea, cleaning up the rubbish on the bottom.
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