‘They ate the shrimp, they even ate the crab’: Thai fishers count the cost of a voracious invader

Automatically composed with AI from the cited sources

Blackchin tilapia, a West African cichlid first reported spreading in Samut Songkhram in 2011, has now infiltrated at least 19 Thai provinces, from Bangkok canals to Pattaya, forcing fishers such as Wallop Khunjaen to abandon shrimp farming after the fish consumed nearly a million baby shrimp in two months. Authorities have released predatory Asian sea bass, developed sterile fish, and bought catches, but Khon Kaen University’s Thotsapol Chaianunporn says eradication is impossible; he advocates for economic uses such as animal feed or human consumption. Fishers have sued Charoen Pokphand Foods, which legally imported 2,000 blackchin tilapia in 2010 but says all were destroyed under a closed-system protocol.