This week for Flora and Fauna Friday it’s our diminutive and delectable denizens of the creek, our edible Shrimp: the Atlantic White Shrimp (Litopenaeus setiferus), the Northern Brown Shrimp (Farfantepenaeus aztecus), and the Northern Pink Shrimp (F. duorarum)
Here on Edisto Island we have three species of edible shrimp, the White Shrimp, the Brown Shrimp, and the Pink Shrimp. The White and Brown Shrimp are far more common, with White Shrimp being the most common. All three of these species are legal to harvest in South Carolina and taste basically the same. They’re all about the same size and look fairly similar too. Overall the White Shrimp is pale-gray with black tail tips, the Brown Shrimp is orange-brown with red tail tips, and the Pink Shrimp is kind of pink, sometimes, but usually more orange and it also, sometimes, has a darker red spot about halfway down its abdomen. There are some other more distinct morphological characteristics that set them apart but I won’t bore you with them here. (We also have a few species of Grass Shrimp, Palaemonetes spp., which are only an inch or two long, translucent, and live in our marshes and oyster reefs.) Shrimp are omnivores and will eat just about anything palatable to them. While young they are predominantly scavengers but become more predatory as they grow larger. Shrimp are an important part of our marine food web as they are eaten by just about everything.
Our Shrimps spend their youth in the estuaries of our tidal creeks before moving out into the shallows of the open ocean as adults. Brown and Pink Shrimps spawn in fall, their eggs hatch within a days or so, the larvae grow into miniature Shrimp, overwinter on the ocean floor, and then migrate into our tidal creeks in spring. White Shrimp conversely spawn in spring and so their larvae don’t overwinter. The larval Shrimp grow over the next few months in their cordgrass cradles. By summer, Brown and Pink Shrimp have reached at least finger length and will begin to head out to the open ocean to finish out their life cycle. White Shrimp will follow suit in late summer and early fall. Many local and regional factors affect a Shrimp’s departure time, chiefly their population levels in the creeks, rainfall upstream, and water temperature. If there are too many Shrimp in an estuary, then they leave earlier and smaller. If there is a lot of rainfall on the uplands there will be an excess of freshwater coming downstream, which will push our salt loving Shrimp out to sea earlier. If the shrimp aren’t overcrowded or if there is little rainfall, they may stay a month or longer in the creeks until water temperatures drop. Shrimp have short lifespans and rarely live for more than a year.
Shrimp are the most popular and profitable fishery in South Carolina as well as the whole United States. Shrimp are harvested commercial mainly with offshore trawling boats in summer and fall. Shrimp are also an extremely popular recreational fishery, open to South Carolina saltwater fishing license holders from May to mid-December. Shrimp aquaculture was once a burgeoning new business in the Lowcountry. In the 1980s, many shrimp farms popped up south of Charleston, with even a few on Edisto Island and along Toogoodoo Creek. These farms grew Shrimp in saltwater ponds for retail sale and many were profitable for a brief time. However on farms using tidal ponds, the potential for shrimp diseases to concentrate in the ponds and then be discharged into the estuaries, where this could harm native Shrimp populations, became a concern of the State. Additionally, heavy competition from overseas shrimp farms quickly appeared. These two factors halted and reversed the industry’s growth in South Carolina. By the mid-2000s, the shrimp farming industry had all but vanished from the Lowcountry and only a few farms still operate in South Carolina today.
