Jumbo shrimp! Giant crustaceans hit local waters

Shrimp cocktail as we know it may be on the verge of extinction.

Local trawlers recently have scooped up a half-pound Asian tiger shrimp, anon-native species that gives the term "jumbo shrimp" a whole new meaning.

Those eating this colossal-sized crustacean may want to buy cocktail sauce by the gallon jar. And don't forget the knife and fork.

Asian tiger shrimp can be as large as a lobster and weigh up to four times as much as a medium-sized shrimp. Much like the name suggests, the animals have black-and-white stripes from head to tail.

It's native to Southeast Asia, the Philippines and Australia.

In recent weeks, three have been caught in local waters off Hilton Head and Fripp islands. Two others were caught in the Charleston area.

How they got here is a mystery to the South Carolina Department of Natural Resources.

"It's been hard for me to find out," said DNR marine biologist David Knott.

"As far as I know, no one in this country is cultivating (them). There have been a number of (tiger) shrimp farms in the Caribbean. ... With all the storms down there, one possibility is ponds have been breached and these things have gotten out."

Knott said there also could be other tiger shrimp farms off the coast of Africa.

Trawler crews who catch the tiger can eat them, sell them, put them on display or give them to the state for DNA testing, Knott said.

Since the state doesn't have money to actively pursue research on the species, Knott said not much is known about the tiger shrimp's life here except for where they are found.

For that reason, they are not now considered invasive.

" 'Invasive' implies that a non-native species has become either an economic or an environmental problem or a danger to human health," Knott said. "So by strict accounts, you would call them nonindigenous. A lot of times it's difficult to tell what ecological impact they do have."

Shrimpers say they haven't noticed the species harming native shrimp.

In fact, local shrimpers would like to catch more of the tasty behemoths.

"If thee root and grow, it would suit me," said John Payne who caught one off Fripp Island. "I could sell a hundred bushels of those in one day."

Payne, who's been shrimping since 1973, said he caught one other tiger shrimp in the 1980s.

In 1988, the species was being raised and studied by the DNR-operated Waddell Mariculture Center in Bluffton. Ponds there were stocked with about 50,000 of the shrimp. One pond screen was not fitted properly and some of the creatures escaped, said Waddell manager Al Stokes.

About 1,000 adults were later recaptured in an area stretching from the waters off Beaufort County to Cape Canaveral, Fla., according to the U.S. Geological Survey's nonindigenous aquatic species Web site.

Stokes said the project's goal was to determine if shrimp farming could be successful locally using the Asian species. Researchers found the animals didn't grow well in large numbers, so the facility switched to Pacific white shrimp, which it still raises today.

The tigers found here recently are not believed to be the offspring of the ones that escapedthe Bluffton facility 20 years ago. Shrimp only survive a few years, Knott said.

But that local escape taught shrimpers how to identify the species.

Payne's 1988 catch left his crew a little shocked.

"I caught one ... and my crewman jumped back from the pile because he was scared of it," Payne remembered with a laugh. "It was big and black and snapping. ... He had never seen a shrimp that color and that size. It was new to him."

Payne gave both that catch and his most recent one to DNR.

Bluffton trawler Kemp Toomer, however, gave the tiger he caught five miles off Hilton Head to his uncle, Larry,who operates the Bluffton Oyster Company with his wife Tina.

"I've got him in the freezer," Larry Toomer said. "I'm saving him for show-and-tell. It'll be on display at the oyster factory in the near future."