Why Northern Shrimp are in Trouble

  In our last quarter, we talked about food webs, food chains, and population fluctuations. It reminded me that this past summer in Georgetown, I heard that there was a ban on shrimping in Maine because the population of the organism was too low. Apparently fishermen over fished over the last several years so the shrimp population plummeted. The northern shrimp feeds upon phytoplankton whose population has also gone down due to warmer waters. It also feeds upon small ocean invertebrates. The natural predators of northern shrimp are larger fish and seabirds. The natural predators are not the problem. The problem is that the natural predators of the shrimp have been overtaken by the human fishermen, who have overfished and depleted Maine’s shrimp population. The good news is that a regulatory agency has banned shrimping so that the little crustaceans can reproduce and bring their population back up to acceptable levels. Here is a link to a site that helped me learn more about the northern shrimp: http://www.asmfc.org/species/northern-shrimp        (by Joey A-M)