Photo credit: Wanna Thawinwan (Thailand) Review: Abdel Rahman El Gamal
Before 2002, the white leg shrimp Litopenaeus vannamei did not appear in the fishery statistics in Thailand while almost all marine shrimp produced belonged to the black tiger shrimp, Penaeus monodon. Afterwards, the local and export markets caused a major shift in shrimp production resulting in leaning more towards whiteleg shrimp on the cost of black tiger shrimp.
On 2002, the production of black tiger shrimp amounted 169,239 tons (73.8%) while was 60,000 tons for whiteleg shrimp (26.2%). With the drastic changes in the species composition, the production of black tiger shrimp seriously dropped to only 9,000 tons in 2007 representing only 1.8% of total farmed shrimp while the production of whiteleg shrimp amounted 490,000 tons in the same year (98.2%).
