Saving Seafood

FLORIDA: After the Storm, a Cherished Local Fishing Industry Feels More Fragile

September 2, 2023 — Dan Ellison started shrimping when he was 12, bringing a change of clothes on the boat so he could make it to school after early-morning outings. He would sketch shrimp boats in class, before quitting school in eighth grade to pursue his passion.

“I couldn’t do what a doctor or lawyer does,” Mr. Ellison, 61, said. “But they couldn’t do what I do. You’ve got to know so much to survive.”

He joined his father shrimping and fishing in tiny Horseshoe Beach, Fla., a business that took a significant hit when the state banned net fishing in the 1990s. In a good year, he said, he makes about $30,000.

“It’s just a dying breed,” Mr. Ellison said of shrimpers in the Big Bend region, where the Florida peninsula meets the Panhandle. And the damage wrought by Hurricane Idalia presents a whole new challenge.

Read the full article at the New York Times

Gov. DeSantis plans to seek aid for the Big Bend’s fishing industry

September 2, 2023 — Gov. Ron DeSantis on Thursday said the state will seek federal help for the fishing industry in the Big Bend region, as cleanup efforts moved into a second day from the devastation caused by Hurricane Idalia.

Meanwhile, the state reported its first confirmed death related to Idalia, while utility workers still had about 135,000 customer power outages to tackle from the Category 3 storm, many in sparsely populated areas of North Florida.

The governor’s plan to seek help from the U.S. Department of Commerce for the fishing industry followed White House approval of a separate request for a major disaster declaration.

Read the full article at WFSU

Florida’s Big Bend coast in Hurricane Idalia’s path

August 30, 2023 — Building into a category 3 hurricane, Hurricane Idalia is moving across the Gulf of Mexico’s deep reservoir of historically warm water, with the National Hurricane Center predicting a path into the U.S. state of Florida’s northern Gulf Coast and landfall the morning of Wednesday, 30 August.

Florida Governor Ron DeSantis declared a state of emergency across 46 counties statewide. Local authorities around the city Tampa Bay ordered a mandatory evacuation, and coastal towns and small fishing ports near Fort Myers, smashed by Hurricane Ian last year, were put on watch, even though forecasters are predicting Idalia will likely track farther north, close to Cedar Key, roughly 80 miles north of Tampa Bay.

Read the full article at SeafoodSource