As the inshore shrimp season ends today in most waters across Louisiana’s coast, shrimpers tell The Courier they’re ready to put 2015 behind them and are hopeful next year will be better.
“It was one of my worst years,” says Carol Terrebonne, an owner of the Seafood Shed in Golden Meadow. “And a lot of the fishermen didn’t make any money because of the price, so all around it was not very good.”
The fall shrimp season is set to close at sunset today for inside state waters except in areas east of the Mississippi River. The Louisiana Department of Wildlife and Fisheries, which announced the decision last week, closes shrimping when it deems that shrimp populations need to be protected to allow them to grow in size.
Shrimpers say prices were starting to pick up toward the end of the season. On Friday, Terrebonne says 80 to 100 count size shrimp were bringing about 90 cents per pound for fishermen, which was almost double the price from earlier in the season.
But it was too little, too late for shrimpers like Nat Alario, who runs the The Julie out of Larose. While lower fuel prices helped reduce expenses, it was not enough to offset the low prices he received for his shrimp.
“With the price of everything, it makes things difficult,” he says, adding that the price of shrimp in supermarkets is “outrageous” compared to what fishermen get.
Throughout the year, many pinned low prices on the influx of imported shrimp as Asian shrimp production bounced back after two years of struggles with early mortality syndrome. Some retailers started off the year with extra inventory, which drove prices lower, says Danny Babin, general manager at Gulf Fish in Houma.
“Last year, production was high and prices were extremely high. That meant we carried over a lot of high-priced inventory into this year, and that’s what made the problem so bad,” he says.
This year, fishermen brought in fewer shrimp than usual.
According to National Marine Fisheries Service data, shrimp landings between January and through November in Louisiana were 41.9 million pounds, compared to 53.7 million during the same time frame last year.
“All we can do in this business is always hope that the next year is going to be better than the last one,” Babin says.
