The Broads Authority earlier this month issued a call to water users to help control the spread of the voracious predator dikerogammarus villosus after a few specimens, smaller than a 20p piece, were found at Barton Turf on the edge of Barton Broad.
A working party set up by the authority in co-operation with the Environment Agency and Natural England has now discovered the shrimp in all parts of the broad, along the River Ant and spreading into the River Bure.
John Currie, regional organiser for the Pike Angling Club of Great Britain, said: “We are at the start of something which is going to have an impact on angling and the whole leisure economy.
“We don’t yet know how big that impact will be on the Broads, but we could be in big trouble.”
A spokesman for the Angling Trust described the latest news as a “devastating blow for anglers”.
The authority’s senior ecologist, Andrea Kelly, said the shrimp, which has spread from eastern Europe over the last 15 years, was now top of the Broads Most Wanted list of invasive species threatening its delicate ecosystem.
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