Hello! Meet Our Gulf Coast Shrimp
Dr. Jim Nance, Chief of the NOAA Galveston Laboratory's Fishery Management Branch.
There are three main species of commercially captured Gulf shrimp – brown shrimp, white shrimp and pink shrimp. (Yes, you Royal Reds fans, we know there’s a fourth kind, but we’re limiting this to the biggest catches – brown, white and pink shrimp compose over 99% of the annual shrimp catch. And we like the Reds and don’t really want to let these little-known morsels get more popular for fear we’ll have trouble finding them on our next visit to Pensacola.)
Brown shrimp and white shrimp are the most caught, with around 80 million pounds of tails harvested each year. The pink shrimp harvest comes in at 5-10 million pounds of tails. Dr. Nance says all three species grow to roughly the same size, and are found in all 5 Gulf Coast states. All species are caught mainly in offshore waters, but there is some bay and shallow water shrimping still taking place. Although bay shrimping has decreased in Texas, Louisiana still has a large inshore shrimp fishery.
Brown shrimp are the most abundant. They are caught mainly from Alabama to southern Texas, and mainly offshore up to 60 fathoms. (I love the word fathoms. A fathom is six feet, but really, who wouldn’t prefer to say fathoms rather than feet? It’s so nautical!) During daylight hours, Brown shrimp bury themselves in the mud on the seafloor. They come out at night; hence, shrimpers drag for Brown shrimp after dark.
Adult Brown shrimp spawn in the winter, offshore. Their larva migrate to shallow inshore waters February through April, where they congregate around grasses and other vegetation for both food and shelter. In May and June, once they’ve grown a little bigger, they venture back out into the deeper waters of the Gulf to mature. Browns are a summer shrimp, with their peak season being mid-July through the fall.
White shrimp are the next most abundant. They are harvested mostly from Alabama to the upper Texas coast. They are found closer to shore than Brown shrimp and in shallower water, up to 20 fathoms (!). Unlike Brown shrimp, Whites are found and fished in daylight. They spawn later than Browns and have a later season, making them mainly a Fall shrimp that mature August through October. The larva migrate to estuaries in June and July.
Pink shrimp are caught mainly off Southwest Florida, mostly around the Dry Tortugas. They seem to spawn year round in the Gulf. Their main season is October through December.
Dr. Nance and staff do a “stock assessment” for the Texas and Louisiana Brown shrimp industry every year, which is their prediction of the size of the shrimp crop for the coming summer. They monitor the maturing larval shrimp in Galveston Bay and use an environmental model that considers water temperature, salinity and other factors that affect the shrimp’s growth. Their predictions are published every June and are accurate to within 5-10%, giving shrimpers a good idea of what kind of season they can expect.
We saved the most important question for last: Which species is the best eatin’? Drum roll please . . . and the answer is . . . it depends. Hmm. Dr. Nance says it depends on your taste. Brown and Pink shrimp have a strong, wilder taste, while Whites are milder. Oh well, guess you’ll just have to sample a bunch yourself to find your favorite.
© 2011 Gulfscapes Magazine. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed. | To Purchase Use Email Gulfscapes | 361-548-6804
A Celebration of Shrimp
History of the Shrimping Industry
Shrimp as a food source has been around for centuries. When you’re studying a subject that has a long history, it’s handy to have an archaeologist around. We’re in luck. Laura Landry, marine archaeologist and President of L. A. Landry & Associates, Inc., has studied the evolution of the shrimp industry and of shrimp boats, and has lent her considerable expertise to Gulfscapes as we explore the Gulf’s shrimping history. 
Until the late 1800’s, explains Ms. Landry, shrimping was a mostly local product, sold close to where it was caught, due to its perishable nature. But then, shrimp as an industry got a boost from improved canning technology which allowed shrimp to be shipped far away without spoiling. The next big boost to the industry’s growth was in the early 1900’s with the advent of the ice machine. Ice allowed boats to stay out longer and catch more shrimp per trip. It allowed the shrimp to stay fresh longer in fish markets. It also allowed that fresh caught taste to last longer so people liked it better. It was a game changer. And so was the next big technological leap, which occurred in the 1920’s . . . freezing. Freezing allowed Gulf Coast shrimp to be shipped all over the world. With the increase in its shelf life, demand for shrimp jumped. With more demand came the need for more harvest. That meant bigger boats and catching shrimp not just in the shallow bays, as had been the custom for years, but also offshore in the deeper waters of the Gulf.
Ms. Landry explains that initially, shrimping was only done in the shallow waters of coastal bays and bayous. This called for boats with shallow drafts. Draft, in simple terms, is how much water a boat needs to float. Shallow draft boats can navigate in shallower water than deep draft boats.
According to Ms. Landry, the early shrimping vessels were sailing boats with wide, flat bottoms that used either centerboards or hinged keels in order to navigate in shallower water. These boats were called luggers, named for the single lugsail it used for propulsion. The original luggers were replaced by modern luggers which have an engine (in place of the sail) and a wheelhouse in the rear of the boat, while the fish hold (where you store the caught shrimp) is located in the front. They range from 20 to 40 feet.
Around 1938, the offshore shrimp boat was introduced to the Gulf. It was the South Atlantic trawler, which until then was used along the deeper waters off the east coast. It was larger, 50-65 feet, had an inboard engine and kept ice in its hold. The wheelhouse was located in the front and the fish hold was in the rear. It had large booms to work its large nets. These trawlers could stay out for weeks, whereas the smaller boats usually didn’t stay out for more than a few days.
Modern offshore trawlers range from 40 to 90 feet, with engines making hundreds of horsepower. Construction varies and modern boats can be made from wood, fiberglass or steel. Most have the wheelhouse in the front, with the fish hold in the rear. Large booms with winches are used to raise and lower the nets.
The type of nets used to catch shrimp has changed over the years, too, says Ms. Landry. She explains that the early shrimpers used a smaller net with a frame to keep it open, called a butterfly net. These nets were lowered along the side of the boat and held in place while the boat slowly trawled. Butterfly nets are still used by small and recreational shrimpers.
Ms. Landry says that from the late 1800’s until 1930, the larger lugger boats used seine nets. The seine nets were long, skinny rectangle shaped nets that had one end attached to the lugger, while small skiffs towed the lead edge of the net away from the lugger and then completed a circle back to the lugger, thereby trapping the shrimp in the net.
Larger nets called otter trawls are used on offshore boats. These cone shaped nets have a pair of doors that keep the net open while it is pulled through the water behind the boat. Otter trawls have tickler chains that help weight the net down to the bottom and that also disturb the shrimp on the bottom, causing them to rise up and be caught in the net.
Modern offshore shrimp boats usually trawl with four nets, and carry an extra four nets as backups. Inshore, or bay shrimpers, trawl with two nets.
When shrimpers pull their nets up, there’s a lot more in there than shrimp. Ms. Landry says that some shrimpers will keep crabs and some fish that have value, but most of the “bycatch” in the nets is thrown back, but a large portion doesn’t survive. Over the years, the amount of bycatch in Gulf shrimp nets has declined, from around 10 pounds of bycatch per one pound of shrimp, to 4 pounds of bycatch for 1 pound of shrimp. Worldwide numbers are higher, with around 6 pounds of bycatch to shrimp, on average.
This bycatch has caused problems as endangered species like sea turtles have gotten caught in the nets and die before they can be released. This led to turtle exclusion devices (TEDs) being required equipment for Gulf shrimpers. The TEDs are a door-like structure placed in the net that help keep turtles from getting caught. Now, bycatch reduction devices (BRDs) are also required to help reduce all bycatch, a move prompted by the depletion of the red snapper population in the Gulf. Red snapper was a frequent bycatch.
These devices are helping turtles and red snapper, which were once threatened by the shrimp industry. The ability of the shrimping industry to absorb these changes for the betterment of other species is a source of pride and accomplishment. But it shouldn’t be surprising. Gulf shrimpers have always been a resilient bunch. With some luck and perseverance, the Gulf shrimp industry will be around another hundred years, and will need an archaeologist like Ms. Landry to explain its history.
© 2011 Gulfscapes Magazine. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed. | To Purchase Use Email Gulfscapes | 361-548-6804
Categories: Featured story, Food & Wine, Gulf Coast States, NOAA, Seafood, Shrimp Tags: al, fl, food, Gulf Coast Shrimp Bisque, history, la, ms, recipe, seafood, shrimp, tx
Shrimping in the Gulf … a Vanishing Lifestyle
“Bubba was from Bayou la Batrie, Alabama, and his mama cooked shrimp. And her mama before her cooked shrimp, and her mama before her mama cooked shrimp, too. Bubba’s family knew everything there was to know about the shrimpin’ business.” Forrest Gump
There’s nothing more symbolic of the traditional Gulf Coast lifestyle than the sight of shrimp boats tied up to the wharfs. And there’s something sweetly nostalgic about driving down to the docks and buying freshly caught shrimp, right off the boat. It’s a Gulf tradition. It’s how we roll. It’s old school. And it’s dying.
Shrimping has been a Gulf Coast way of life for as long as anyone can remember. Shrimping families passed on their boats and nets from generation to generation. A whole economy and a whole culture grew from those boats and the hearty men and women who worked them.
As far back as 1758, a French historian/explorer named Antoine-Simon Le Page du Pratz documented shrimp as a food source in Louisiana. Little did he know that the tiny shrimp would drive the development of one of the biggest economic engines and most significant cultural shapers of the Gulf Coast.
Mr. du Pratz was also witness to the beginning of a great cultural change . . . the demise of the Native American tribes. The tribes were driven from positions of power into near extinction due to foreign intervention. The Gulf shrimping industry today finds itself in the same precarious position as it sees cheap foreign shrimp illegally flooding the market. The Gulf shrimping industry, like the Native Americans a century ago, finds its way of life threatened.
So what happened? Why did the shrimp industry go from a stable industry to threatened? The quick answer is that illegal dumping of cheap imported farm-raised shrimp drove prices down to artificially low levels. The more detailed answer adds in more factors. One is the increase in production costs to comply with government regulations. Another is the continuing rise of fuel costs (boats need fuel.) And closer regulation of the shrimping season by government agencies increased competition. You can add in numerous hurricanes that devastated boats and processing warehouses. And most recently, you might recall a certain oil spill that virtually shut down large portions of the Gulf seafood industry. If it wasn’t one thing, it was another.
But the greatest threat to the Gulf shrimping industry is unfair competition from foreign producers. The price of shrimp in the U.S. plummeted in the early 2000’s due to unfairly low priced shrimp being “dumped” on the U.S. market. “Dumping” occurs when a company exports its products at a price that is actually lower than what it sells for in its home market. In 2004, the U.S. government determined that shrimp from Brazil, China, India, Thailand, and Vietnam were “dumped” on the U.S. market in violation of fair trade. In response, the U.S. took the dramatic step of imposing anti-dumping duties (tariffs) on shrimp from those countries in an effort to halt the rapidly dropping prices. The prices stabilized, but by that time prices paid to Gulf shrimpers had fallen to 1960’s levels, around 90% of all shrimp sold in the U.S. was foreign, and many U.S. shrimpers had been put out of business. Things were so bad that in 2003, the U.S. Congress declared the Gulf shrimp fishery an economic disaster area.
How far did prices decline due to the illegal dumping? Prices for imported shrimp dropped from $5.12 a pound in 2000 to $3.14 a pound in 2004. That’s a 39% reduction. During that time period, the amount of imported shrimp rose 71%. Prices for U.S. produced shrimp dropped in response; prices paid to shrimpers at the dock for 15-20 count shrimp in 2001 were $5.68 a pound, but just $3.24 in 2009. But isn’t this good news for consumers? Aren’t we able to buy shrimp cheaper now? Sorry, shrimp retail prices haven’t dropped. The SSA cites a study that showed the retail price of shrimp actually went up between 2000 – 2003. The people who sell consumers shrimp haven’t passed on the savings. That means Gulf shrimpers are getting paid a lot less, but you’re getting charged more.
Why was the imported shrimp dumped on the U.S. market? “In 2000, the European Union, which is far better at testing imported seafood for harmful substances than the U.S., aggressively enforced its rules on banned substances in shrimp. This kept many companies from China and other countries from selling their shrimp in the EU countries,” said John Williams, Executive Director of the Southern Shrimp Alliance, an industry group that represents shrimpers in all five Gulf states, plus Georgia, North Carolina and South Carolina. “Once they couldn’t sell to the EU, they dumped that shrimp in the U.S.,” Williams explained.
Why the U.S.? Mr. Williams says the answer is 2%. That’s the percent of imported seafood the U.S. government tests for quality and harmful substances. That means if you import tainted shrimp, you have a 98% chance of not getting caught. The European Union (EU), Canada and Japan test far more than that, some up to 20%, and once a problem is found, they will test 100% of that company’s imports. The U.S. testing doesn’t come close to those numbers. In essence, the foreign shrimp were dumped in the U.S. because they contained banned antibiotics (or other substances) and couldn’t get past inspectors in Europe. But they could get past inspectors in the U.S.
Then, in 2001, the EU raised tariffs sharply on shrimp imported from some Asian countries, making it more profitable for the Asian shrimp to be shipped to the U.S., adding to the oversupply that had already driven prices down.
The Southern Shrimp Alliance has led the battle against the cheap imports. According to the SSA, several of the offending countries continue to trade unfairly. The SSA claims that several foreign governments give subsidies to their shrimp producers to artificially stimulate shrimp exports beyond market demand. Furthermore, the U.S. government verified that certain countries were falsely labeling their shrimp to avoid paying the anti-dumping duties (for example, Chinese shrimp were labeled as being from Malaysia. Chinese shrimp is charged the duty, Malaysian shrimp is not.) “There are companies in Malaysia that openly advertise that they will repackage Chinese shrimp so it will state that it was grown in Malaysia,” said Mr. Williams, “That’s how blatant it is.” In March 2011, the U.S. government decided to continue the anti-dumping duties for another 5 years because it believed stopping the duties would result in even more harm to the U.S. shrimp industry.
The quality of imported shrimp is also questioned by the SSA because hazardous and banned substances continue to be found in imported farmed shrimp. What kind of substances are used and why? Most of the imported shrimp is farm grown (raised in inland ponds), rather than wild grown in the ocean. Foreign shrimp farmers have strong economic incentives to use chemicals to grow their shrimp as fast and as large as possible. In plain English, some foreign shrimp farmers use banned substances to make more money. In addition, the foreign farm grown shrimp are, according to the SSA, raised in crowded conditions that are susceptible to disease. Because of this, foreign shrimp farmers are afraid that an outbreak of disease could destroy their entire crop, hence they are motivated to use harmful antibiotics and pesticides.
How do foreign shrimp producers get their shrimp into the U.S. if they contain banned substances? Go back to the 2% inspection rate. Foreign producers use “Port Shopping”, says Mr. Williams. “They send their shrimp to U.S. ports on the West Coast where there is only a 2% chance of it being inspected. If it does happen to be inspected and found to contain harmful substances, the U.S. Customs Service doesn’t confiscate the shrimp, they give it back to the shipper. They don’t even mark the package as containing tainted shrimp. The EU inspectors destroy the tainted shrimp and send out warnings about it to all other EU nations. We don’t. We give the tainted shrimp back to the shipper. So the shipper just puts the shrimp back on the boat and sails to the next nearest port, where they try to import the shrimp again. And unless their packages are in the 2% inspected, they’ll get in this time,” explained Mr. Williams.
To help combat this evasion of food inspection, some states have started their own inspection of foreign seafood. And they find tainted shrimp. Mr. Williams applauds the states for stepping up, but knows the best solution would be for U.S. Customs to step up. Mr. Williams says consumers deserve to know the shrimp they’re eating is safe. He also says Gulf shrimp are the most tested seafood in the world right now.
There are some positive developments. “Country of Origin” labels are now required on all raw seafood imports (but not seasoned or prepared seafood.) The COO labels, as they are called, disclose the country where the shrimp were harvested and how they were caught. Concerned consumers can look at the packaging in their grocery stores and see what kind of shrimp they are getting. But most shrimp is sold in restaurants, and restaurants aren’t required to disclose to customers where their shrimp come from. “If you’re sitting in a waterfront restaurant in Louisiana eating shrimp, you assume that you’re eating Louisiana shrimp. But there’s a 90% chance you’re eating imported farm raised shrimp,” explained Mr. Williams.
Another positive development is the rising health awareness of the U.S. consumer. More people are concerned with the quality of the food they eat. Projects such as the Monterrey Bay Aquarium’s Seafood WATCH program list which types of seafood are preferable, from a safety standpoint and a sustainability standpoint. The Seafood WATCH program recommends eating U.S. wild caught and U.S. farm raised shrimp, but advises avoiding most farm raised imports (with the exception of Thailand.) U.S. farmed shrimp is recommended, since it doesn’t have the same quality concerns as the imports.
Although the price for shrimp has stabilized, it is still artificially low. That means most shrimpers can’t make it. They’re getting paid for their shrimp in 1960’s prices, but have 2011 expenses. Mr. Williams, who has been in the shrimp business for over 40 years as a boat owner, dock owner and retail seafood seller, says in the last couple of years, he’s had to sell 3 of his 4 boats. In the harbor in Tarpon Springs, Florida, where Mr. Williams works, there used to be 60 shrimp boats. Now, there are only two. In the southern warm water shrimping states, there were around 8000 offshore shrimp boats in operation 15 years ago. Today, there are around 1000.
Mr. Williams says prices wouldn’t have gone so low if the foreign shrimp farmers had to follow the rules like everyone else. He points out that the U.S. has shrimp farmers who do follow the rules, but they only make up 5% of the total U.S. shrimp production, evidence that farming shrimp doesn’t necessarily equate with cheaper if done legally.
“Gulf shrimpers have proven that we can compete with any nation as long as people play by the same rules. But we can’t survive if people cheat. Right now, the playing field isn’t level,” explained Mr. Williams. “We hear people talk about ‘free trade’. Well, there’s no such thing as ‘free trade’ because someone always suffers. What we need to talk about is ‘fair trade’, and that’s all we want. Otherwise, we’re looking at an entire culture that could be out of existence because of these folks.”
Gulf shrimpers can weather the devastation of a hurricane; they can repair their boats and recoup their lost income through hard work. They can even survive an oil spill by extra diligence in their shrimping techniques. But if unfair competition continues to drive the price of shrimp so low that a shrimper can’t even make enough money on a good catch to pay for his fuel, then there’s nothing that can keep him in business. Hard work, smart planning, good decisions . . . all the traits we Americans admire and encourage . . . won’t matter. It would be a crime to see an entire way of life vanish. Just ask a Native American.
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What you can do to help the Gulf shrimp industry.
Buy wild caught Gulf shrimp. Look at the package in your grocery store for the Country of Origin label. If you don’t see wild caught Gulf shrimp, ask for it.
When you eat out, ask your waiter where the shrimp is from. Is it U.S. shrimp or foreign import. Tell them you prefer wild caught Gulf shrimp.
