Shrimp is present, but prices are low

Battered by squalls that tore across the Louisiana coast Monday, Ronnie Anderson of Montegut kept his 60-foot trawler steady in waters south of the Atchafalaya River.

Anderson, a veteran fisherman, counted his blessings for safety through the storms and for what have been good catches of white shrimp.

But like other local shrimpers, Anderson is still dismayed by what he said are the lowest prices in a while.  

“God has been good to us,” he said. “We have been blessed with what’s turned out to be a good season.”

Rene LeBreton, a spokeswoman for the Louisiana Department of Wildlife and Fisheries, said it’s too early to supply numbers on the shrimp catch for this season.

“We are usually a few months behind on the numbers because we spend so much time on our protocols,” she said.

The season, which began in August, is expected to run through mid-December.

Between now and then, Anderson and other fishermen are hoping for a break in price, however.

“The price has dropped for a third time,” the shrimper said, noting that shrimp numbering 40 or 50 to the pound had dropped from in excess of $2 per pound recently to $1.45 per pound, in general. Big shrimp fetching nearly $5 per pound at the dock a few weeks ago are now down to nearly $3 per pound.

Dock owners say they have done what they could to keep prices at a fair rate, but that the market overall is causing low prices.

Continued low prices of imported shrimp, they say, dominate the market. A paucity of imported shrimp due to disease in aquaculture ponds, they say, has caused a bigger influx of the product.

“We’ve got imported shrimp being turned down by every civilized country in the world but they come into here, to this country, with no problem,” said Dean Blanchard, who buys shrimp in Grand Isle and Dulac.

Blanchard and others in the shrimp trade are talking to federal officials, asking why more checks of imports for the presence of antibiotics and other chemicals are not being done. The chemicals, they say, are one of the reasons why European countries are turning away shrimp from Thailand, Vietnam, China and other nations.

On the bright side, Blanchard said fishermen are seeing shrimp in places they weren’t after the BP oil spill.

“At least that gives us something good to say,” he said.

 — john@rushing-media.com