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The recent streak of cold weather has sent crawfish into hibernation, and the price for the popular crustaceans has risen with that lack of supply.
Alan Matherne, coastal fisheries and wildlife outreach specialist with the LSU AgCenter, said not many crawfish die from cold weather unless they populate ponds that freeze over, but the cold weather does stunt their growth.
“Since they are crustaceans, the colder the weather gets, the less activity they can engage in. It will be later in the season when the water warms up that they can come out and actually start eating well,” Matherne said.
The AgCenter official said extreme cold weather kills the floorage at the bottom of crawfish ponds. Since crawfish hibernate deep in the mud during cold weather, the floorage is not needed as much during freezing temperatures, but it does become a necessity later in the season when crawfish start to emerge and grow.
Stephen Minvielle, director of the Louisiana Crawfish Promotion and Research Board, said when the cold weather drops below 40 degrees, it slows down the development of a crawfish’s shell.
“Based on the projections we had, we might have had an average season,” Minvielle said of the season before the arrival of cold weather. “As of right now, we’re behind 50 to 60 days of production that we can’t get back. The season is not a bust but it has definitely been hurt.”
The typical crawfish season runs from early November to mid-June with optimum temperature for crawfish growth averaging 62 degrees. Minvielle said at recent temperatures, crawfish will continue to develop, just not at the pace they should be.
Local fishermen who set their traps in hopes of catching crawfish said there is not much they can do since the weather is out of their control.
David Pierce, a commercial fisherman from Morgan City, said the success of the crawfish season would be well underway, but because of the cold it may be three to six weeks before there is another worthy batch of crawfish.
He said the cold weather caused a lack of water near the Atchafalaya Basin where he crawfishes. For Pierce, this means he has not caught a successful batch since December.
“If we could get some more water, we could start fishing pretty good,” Pierce said. “But right now we’re looking at a slow start and a late season.”
The lack of supply is evident at local eateries such as Big Al’s Seafood Restaurant in Houma where crawfish were priced at $7 per pound on Monday afternoon.
Al Mahler, owner of Big Al’s, said he has never sold crawfish at such a high price range in the almost 30 years he has been in the seafood business, citing his usual price at this time of the year around $5 or $6.
Despite the decrease in supply and increase in prices, Mahler said it has been business as usual at his Houma eatery.
As the Lenten season fast approaches, crawfish eaters can prepare for what fishermen and supplier are hoping to be a turnaround season.
“We’ve got a pretty resilient economy in this area and when people get an envie to eat crawfish, they basically satisfy it no matter what the price is,” Matherne said.
They’re hiding now, but the LSU AgCenter’s Alan Matherne says locals can expect a good harvest in late March when the temperatures rise. Production is currently lagging by 50 to 60 days.
