Saving Seafood

Louisiana Fishing Community Recovery Coalition’s Harlon Pearce Tells It Like It Is

June 27, 2022 — Hurricane Ida, and three others in two years, has thrown the Gulf seafood industry into turmoil.  Add to that Covid, unprecedented fuel prices, new state and federal fishing regulations, inflation and a tight labor market; the result has been astronomical seafood costs for both the individual consumer and restaurants across the country.

“Restaurants are having a hard time putting oysters and other Gulf seafood on the menu because prices are so high,” said Harlon Pearce owner of Harlon’s LA Fish in New Orleans and chair of the Louisiana Fishing Community Recovery Coalition.  “What is sad is restaurants that would have never considered buying imported seafood, are now buying imports.”

Hurricanes Laura, Delta, Zeta, and Ida, made landfall in coastal Louisiana causing vital infrastructure losses of approximately $600 million to a region of national importance for domestic fisheries and seafood production.  Since forming in December of year last, the coalition has been seeking ways to rebuild that infrastructure, as well as prevent losses from future storms.

“Infrastructure can be many things to different people.  We have to rebuild docks that are buying product, and they have to be rebuilt better, stronger and higher,” explained Pearce. “That’s just part of the infrastructure we need.  We need bridges that are better and stronger; in Lafitte they lost the only bridge connecting them to Barataria.  Those are just two needs of a very long list.”

Read the full story at Gulf Seafood News

 

LOUISIANA: Spring shrimp season to open Monday

May 5, 2017 — Local shrimpers can return to inshore waters at 6 a.m. Monday when the spring shrimp season begins.

The Louisiana Wildlife and Fisheries Commission today set the opening dates of the season based on data provided by its biologists and public comments.

The middle of the state, which includes the Terrebonne and Barataria basins, will be the first to open.

“If you look at Barataria and Terrebonne basins, they account for about 80 percent of brown shrimp landings,” said LDWF biologist Jeff Marx. “The next 10 percent is from Pontchartrain, a little bit from the Mississippi River Delta and very small amounts in the Atchafalaya, Vermilion and Calcasieu” basins.

Following the opening of Zone 2, which stretches from the western shore of the Vermilion Bay to the eastern shore of the mouth of the Mississippi River in Plaquemines Parish, the rest of the state will open at 6 a.m. May 15.

Marx recommended to the LDWF board that the season should begin next week because of favorable conditions for shrimp this year. All of the shrimpers agreed with Marx and said opening the season next week was the right option. Some shrimpers said the season should have opened earlier.

“I was here at the last meeting in April, they had a bunch of guys that wanted to wait,” said John Brown, a shrimper from Barataria. “I think the shrimp season should’ve opened in April.”

Read the full story at Houma Today 

LOUISIANA: Scientists: Saving the coast does not necessarily mean destroying fisheries

August 26, 2016 — George Ricks represents one of the great ironies in the debate over how to restore and protect parts of Louisiana’s rapidly-vanishing coast.

Like many of those who depend most on Louisiana’s estuaries, the charter boat captain is deeply skeptical of the state’s plans to build massive structures and deliver Mississippi River sediment into the marsh with the aim of building land.

“They’re going to turn both of the estuaries, Barataria and Breton, totally fresh from February to July,” said Ricks, “which is going to wipe out our spawning seasons.”

A group of scientists and community experts came together to examine not whether to building diversions, but how they would be operated.

“When people come to New Orleans, they want to eat oysters, they want to eat seafood. they want to eat shrimp,” said Dr. Earl Melancon, Ph.D., a Nicholls State University expert on shellfish.

Melancon was one of a dozen experts who, in essence, tackled the question of whether it is possible to partially free the Mississippi River from its straight jacket of levees without ruining an entire way of life.

Read the full story at Fox 8 New Orleans

Shrimp season to kick off this month in Louisiana

May 10, 2016 — Starting on 23 May at 6 a.m. local time, inshore shrimpers across the state of Louisiana will be permitted to begin their spring season.

The decision comes from the Louisiana Wildlife and Fisheries Commission, which voted on 5 May to go ahead with a universal opening that won’t be staggered among shrimp zones for the second year in a row, reported Nola.com.

The move to go ahead with an un-staggered opening opposes Louisiana Department of Wildlife and Fisheries data, which found that an earlier opening would benefit certain areas such as with the Barataria, Timbalier, Terrebonne and the Vermilion-Teche basins. Shrimp would reach harvestable size in the Barataria, Timbalier and Terrebonne basins on or before 16 May, according to the data presented by department biologist Jeff Marx.

Read the full story from Seafood Source