Viral ‘shrimp raves’ raise awareness of an endangered species

Lisa Desjardins:

Dance crazes and cute animals are unavoidable on the video sharing app TikTok today, but look below the surface underwater to be more precise, some special critically endangered crustaceans have unintentionally hopped on the trend.

It's called a Shrimp Rave, electronic music, synchronized grooving, glowing shrimp. These exclusive extravaganzas can be seen on the shrimp lead beautiful TikTok account. It's run by conservationist and California State Fullerton student, Timothy Utterback.

Timothy Utterback, California State Fullerton student: I would put educational videos or kind of Lo Fi piano relaxing videos of the shrimp. And I would put captions listing how they're endangered and this and that, about their species and they never really seem to pop. Once I started putting the entertaining music on. A lot of people were drawn to it.

Lisa Desjardins:

The stars of the show are Cardinal Sulawesi shrimp, a small species of critically endangered critters, who wants hailed from an ancient Indonesian lake, but no one has recorded them there since 2013. Many blamed nearby nickel mining along with other factors for wiping out the population. They might now be completely extinct in the wild. Utterback says his ultimate goal in breeding them is to help extend their festivities beyond his room raves that are streamed live on tick tock.

Timothy Utterback:

If the captive population is high, then we could end up reintroducing them, whether it be five years, 10 years, 20 years down the line. Once they were happy, they bred like crazy, they bred like rabbits, and I went from 30 to having over 1000

Lisa Desjardins:

They gained their TikTok stardom, not by actually dancing, but by feasting.

Timothy Utterback:

When the shrimps started eating their arms, so growing really quickly, and they love being in little groups, so it looks like they're synchronized dancers.

Lisa Desjardins:

These shrimp raves can just happen anywhere. It takes a lot of work to replicate their home environment half a world away, Lake Matano is an estimated one to 4 million years old. It is also one of the deepest lakes in the world and is rich in minerals and biodiversity.

Timothy Utterback:

I kind of look like a mad scientist whenever I'm taking care of the aquariums. I always have five or six test tubes just hanging out in my room and doing all these water testings just to make sure the shrimp have a great environment.

Lisa Desjardins:

Striking the chemical balance is a tricky task. But Utterback says he wants to make videos that show people how to do it for themselves so the shrimps numbers can grow and bring people a little happiness in the process.

Timothy Utterback:

It brings a ton of joy to people and some people tell me they've had a really bad day or you know they got fired from work their boyfriend dumped them whatever but then they see the shrimp rave and somehow it just makes them feel a lot better.

Shrimply Beautiful. Shrimp rave.

Lisa Desjardins:

Millions of views later, Utterback and Shrimply Beautiful are bringing big awareness to one of the planet's smallest endangered animals.