Louisiana shrimp vessels. (Photo: NOAA)

Louisiana shrimping season, one of the worst on record

UNITED STATES
Wednesday, December 21, 2011, 23:40 (GMT + 9)

What was arguably the worst fall white-shrimp season in recent history ended this week.

Most inside waters will be closed to fishing to allow shrimp to grow larger, as current sampling conducted by Louisiana Department of Wildlife and Fisheries (LDWF) biologists indicates that average white shrimp size in these waters is smaller than 100 count per lb, announced the Department last week.

No official evidence yet exists on how bad the season was or why.

The shrimp produced around Grand Isle and Barataria Bay has plummeted since the spill, according to locals.

“The shrimp season was average from Dulac to west Louisiana, and above average in Biloxi and Alabama. But over here where the oil hit, there's nothing,” Dean Blanchard, a seafood processor on Grand Isle, said, Daily Comet reports.

Many shrimpers still worry that the BP oil spill and chemicals used for the cleanup have hampered shrimp catches and will continue to harm the fishery.

Louisiana shrimp season. (Map: wlf.louisiana.gov)

Shrimp fishers also believe other changes in the environment are attributable to the oil spill, such as unusual increases of jelly fish plugging the nets in shrimping grounds.

Martin Bourgeois, a biologist with the LDWF, said hard data about how this season fares to past ones will not be available until March. Meanwhile, it remains tricky to speculate on what caused the poor season.

Researchers will examine the role of the spill as a part of the Natural Resource Damage Assessment, a process that will determine how the spill impacted the Gulf Coast environment. But this process may take at least a decade.

Bourgeois said other factors that could have depressed shrimp catches, such as the near-record flooding in the Mississippi and Atchafalaya rivers earlier in 2011; freshwater flooding can deplete oxygen levels and cause the death of marine animals. Fresh water could also displace shrimp from the areas where they typically spawn and grow.

Relatedly, shrimpers have observed a sharp rise in the numbers of tiger prawns, a giant striped shrimp and new invasive species. LDWF officials are asking fishers to report sightings of the tiger prawn as biologists work to find out where the exotic shrimp may have originated from and how they could affect native shrimp species, The Associated Press reports.

Louisiana fishers used to see about 25-30 tiger prawns in their nets per year, but this fall they found numbers approaching 100, Bourgeois said.

Related articles:

- Gulf fishers offered double the money for losses incurred since BP oil spill 
- Sightings of invasive tiger shrimp soar, DNR asks for help

By Natalia Real
editorial@fis.com
www.fis.com

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