Sea-caught shrimp peppered and being steamed in a pot on a coal stove in Middle Quarters, St Elizabeth. The shrimp is traditionally cooked at firesides where customers can see.
March 24, 2025
The scourge of invasives
For lovers of spicy, peppered shrimp, news from Agriculture Minister Floyd Green that Jamaica’s “first-ever shrimp hatchery” will soon help to reduce shortage of the favoured, soft-back variety of the crustacean is possibly like manna from heaven.
“We have gone through our trial processes and now we are going to be starting a pilot project [to distribute] shrimp and prawn…” Mr Green told the latest Sunday edition of this newspaper.
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Headlined ‘River shrimp population on the decline’, the article focused in part on the dwindling population of native, tasty, soft-shell shrimp which are being out-competed — possibly eaten — by much larger crayfish, an invasive species out of Australia.
The story, dating back many years, is that the invasive crustacean was brought in to be bred commercially only to be washed into the Black River during flood rains.
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Nowadays, vendors in Middle Quarters, on the banks of a branch of the Black River, the main pepper-shrimp vending area in St Elizabeth, depend on both varieties.
But the native soft-back shrimp preferred by their customers is increasingly difficult to find.
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Negative consequences of invasive species are long-standing. In our view, the mongoose takes the cake in that regard. Historians say the extremely adaptive predator was brought here in the latter half of the 1800s to control irritants, including rats and snakes (ironically the native Jamaican snake is said to be harmless) in cane fields. Within a few years, the animal — with no natural predator — had spread throughout the entire island, creating havoc while feasting on free-range poultry and wildlife.
Naturalists say some varieties of birds, lizards, and other species are endangered or have disappeared altogether — victims of the mongoose.
In the Blue Mountains, the white-tail deer, unheard of in Jamaica until a few decades ago, now run numerous and wild — a nightmarish headache for farmers trying to protect their crops, but prized meat for hunters. Reports say a few deer escaped captivity from a tourist attraction during Hurricane Gilbert in 1988, reproducing rapidly thereafter.
Environmental scientists say invasive plants are also a major worry, such as wild ginger (alpinia allughas) originally from South-East Asia and the towering fast-growing Australian paperbark tree, which carries the scientific name melaleuca quinquenervia.
Both wild ginger and the paperbark, among other invasive plants, are said to pose major threats to the ecology of Jamaican wetlands. That includes the Black River Morass, our largest wetland, which stretches over many thousands of acres and is a major source of economic activity — including tourism and fishing — for St Elizabeth communities.
How to protect Jamaica’s natural environment from invasive species is a constant challenge for those who guard our borders.
Obviously, as is the case for much else, public education is vital. In schools and everywhere else Jamaicans should be taught the complex inter-relatedness of nature and the terrible consequences that can result from thoughtlessness.
All year round, not just on occasions such as World Wetlands Day, celebrated on February 2, naturalists and all who know best need to be hammering home the need to protect our environment and ecology.
Ultimately, the hope must be that such efforts will help to prevent careless behaviour, such as someone taking home a strange plant simply because “it pretty”.
