The impact of the recent widespread flooding on the upcoming crawfish season will depend on many factors, says LSU AgCenter and Louisiana Sea Grant aquaculture and coastal resources specialist Mark Shirley.
“We really won’t know the extent of damage until we get into the harvest season later this winter,” says Shirley in a recent newsletter to crawfish producers.
Crawfish typically spend their summers sealed in burrows along the pond levees, says LSU AgCenter Aquaculture Research Station professor and specialist Greg Lutz, while crawfish farmers plant rice or other vegetation to serve as the basis for a natural food chain once they flood ponds again in the fall.
The recent floodwaters may have flushed female crawfish—who are carrying eggs under their tales—out of the burrows, leaving them vulnerable to hot, stagnant water and predators such as fish and birds.
Ray McClain, a professor at the AgCenter Rice Research Station near Crowley, has shown that female crawfish can survive several episodes of being flushed from the ground by flooding and still go on to spawn in the fall—as long as they can get back into a burrow.
Shirley says that “if the floodwater recedes within a few days, many of the females will be able to re-burrow or find an existing burrow to move into.”
“We shouldn’t assume that there is going to be a blanket net negative impact for the industry as a whole,” McClain says. “I really think there will be negative impacts for some producers, yet others probably will see little or no effect.”
Crawfish farmers are being encouraged to mitigate damage by draining ponds as soon as possible to eliminate predators and allow re-burrowing by female crawfish carrying eggs.
Female crawfish typically lay their eggs in the late August with peaks in late September or early October, Lutz says, but the egg laying can continue until November or early December. The fact that there shouldn’t be any drought-linked impacts this year is probably going to offset some of the negatives from the flooding, he adds.
“Bottom line is—neither the farmers nor the consumers should give up on the upcoming crawfish season just yet,” Lutz says.
