preface
The Americans have a big head again, the problem of the Front Foot Asian Carp has not been solved, and the Hind Foot has another Asian aquatic creature that has come out and wreaked havoc, which can even grow as long as a human forearm, leaving americans with no way to do anything for a while, and they feel a deep headache.
And this kind of Asian aquatic species that makes Americans feel deeply troubled is not a water monster, but an Asian tiger shrimp that can sell for 100 yuan a pound in the Chinese market.
Asian tiger shrimp
For Chinese foodies, Asian tiger shrimp can be described as a regular on the table, because of its elastic taste and delicious taste, it has always been a high-end ingredient in sushi restaurants, and even has the reputation of "butterfly shrimp". But it is this kind of Asian tiger shrimp that cannot live in China as an adult, change the environment, and after arriving in the United States, it has become a major problem for Americans.
What's going on? What kind of magical creature is the Asian tiger shrimp? How did you cross the ocean to the United States? Listen to me talk to you slowly below.
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Asian tiger shrimp grows up to about 312 grams, because of its rapid growth, miscellaneous food, strong adaptability to the environment, not easy to die during transportation, easy to breed, so Asian tiger shrimp has also become the world's largest shrimp commercially farmed shrimp.
Its origin is in the Indian Ocean and the western Pacific Ocean, while South Asia, Southeast Asia, Australia, the Philippines and other places are also rich in Asian tiger shrimp. But this goods are not good to stay, how did they run to the land of the Americans?
How did you get to the United States?
This has to start from the 1980s, when an aquaculture farm in South Carolina, USA, also valued the many advantages of Asian tiger shrimp meat, tender and fat, large, tenacious vitality, and ease of transportation. So it was decided to introduce a batch of Asian tiger shrimp from Asia for breeding experiments first, at first, everything was normal, and Asian tiger shrimp did not make waves.
But the weather was unpredictable, and in 1988, a sudden hurricane broke this original "peace" and tranquility, and the aquaculture farm was seriously damaged by the hurricane. As a result, more than 2,000 Asian tiger shrimp were washed away into the nearby natural waters by the strong wind.
According to the 2012 statistics of the Federal Geological Survey, in the past 20 years, there have been only sporadic traces of Asian tiger shrimp found in the waters of the United States. Of these, these data do not look unusual, although this is only a small fraction of the actual number of Asian tiger shrimp.
Asian tiger shrimp populations have surged
But all of this changed dramatically between 2011 and 2012, with Asian tiger shrimp proliferating in just a few years. According to later survey results, the number of Asian tiger shrimp located on the east coast of the United States has surpassed the Gulf of Mexico and continues to spread to the Atlantic Ocean at a very rapid rate.
How did the Asian tiger shrimp skyrocket in the few years that followed? As an exotic species, Asian tiger shrimp must first find a habitat that is very suitable for their survival if they want to grow so unscrupulously. Apparently, the later Asian tiger shrimp had found a perfect place for themselves in the United States.
Actually, so Asian tiger shrimp did not hesitate to choose these places.
Secondly, because it is an exotic species, there are no natural enemies of Asian tiger shrimp in these waters. At the same time, Asian tiger shrimp is also a carnivorous creature, is a greedy predator, usually feeds on some small shrimp, small crabs, clams do not spare, and even rob other shrimp in the United States of habitat and food.
Coupled with the fertility of Asian tiger shrimp, hatched juvenile shrimp migrate to deeper waters and continue to grow unscrupulously.
So all of this has allowed the Asian tiger shrimp to quietly and continuously grow their "team" and occupy many waters of the United States in just a few years. So, the American was anxious, he was anxious........
If the Asian tiger shrimp are allowed to grow unchecked, then according to the number of eggs produced by 500,000 to 1 million animals per breeding season, the waters of the eastern United States and the Gulf Coast will eventually become the "colony" of black tiger shrimp. At that time, the living space of other creatures living in these waters will be greatly compressed and face existential threats.
"Mutated" Asian tiger shrimp
After the Asian tiger shrimp gained a firm foothold in the United States, the comfortable hydrological environment not only made their numbers surge, but also the unique geographical environment of the United States is changing their body shape, just like "mutated" ordinary organisms, it is really a water and soil breeding shrimp.
In 2015, fishermen in Florida, USA, had been. You know, under normal circumstances, Asian tiger shrimp can only grow to 15-25 cm. Brother Shrimp, your size is really a bit exaggerated, a little outrageous.
In the face of this situation, the United States has now completely included the Asian black tiger shrimp on the list of invasive alien species, but it has been slow to find a good way to curb its spread. Someone once suggested that Asian tiger shrimp be used as a table meal to eliminate it through the power of foodies. But American foodies don't seem interested in Asian tiger shrimp.
Because the Asian tiger shrimp produced in the United States has a hard meat and no fresh sweetness of shrimp meat, and compared with various cooking and frying in China, Americans have a relatively simple cooking method for ingredients, so Asian tiger shrimp has not become a delicacy in the hands of Americans.
Another threat to Asian tiger shrimp
The reason why Americans look down on Asian tiger shrimp is actually because there is another threat to Asian tiger shrimp. According to the U.S. Geological Survey, these Asian tiger shrimp actually carry a variety of viral diseases and are highly contagious, and it is easy to transmit these diseases to other crustaceans such as shrimp, oysters, crabs, etc., thus threatening the U.S. fishing industry.
Although these diseases carried by Asian tiger shrimp are only transmitted between crustaceans and do not affect humans, Americans still have a lingering feeling about them.
brief summary
Today's United States can be described as a "paradise" for the invasion of alien species, swimming in the water, running on the ground, growing from the soil, almost all of which can grow freely on the land of the United States, which seriously affects the local ecological environment and people's daily life.
In addition to the Asian carp and the Asian tiger shrimp mentioned today, zebra mussels native to the Black Sea region have flooded the Great Lakes of the United States and were brought to the United States as pets in the 1980s by the Burmese python, which by 2012 had nearly 300,000 stocks.
Zebra mussels
But whether it is burmese pythons, Asian carp, Asian tiger shrimp, their flooding in the United States has some common characteristics, are exotic species, no natural predator restrictions, strong environmental adaptability, strong reproductive ability, and constantly destroy the original stable ecological chain of the United States.
So although the current United States is still a prosperous and powerful world's first superpower on the surface, in fact, the United States is still facing a variety of thorny problems, the epidemic crisis, economic decline, climate change, and the problems of species invasion and ecological environment that we mention today.