Preliminary shrimp landings data from the Gulf of Mexico and the South Atlantic for October 2022 released by NOAA show catches in the U.S. state of Louisiana are up, offsetting drops in hauls in other states.
NOAA's reporting indicates landings in Louisiana so far in 2022 are the highest they've been in years, with 43.3 million pounds landed – above the historical average of 43.05 million pounds and up significantly from the 15.1 million pounds landed in 2021. The state alone accounts for approximately 47 percent of shrimp reported by the NOAA.
In October 2022, preliminary data indicates that 10.1 million pounds of shrimp were landed in the Gulf of Mexico and the South Atlantic regions. For the first 10 months of the year, NOAA reporting indicates that 99.6 million pounds of warmwater shrimp were landed. That's down slightly from the 104.7 million pounds of warmwater shrimp caught in 2021, but up from the 97.2 million pounds caught in 2020.
On a state-by-state basis, Texas, Alabama, Florida, North Carolina, and Georgia all saw lower landings in October 2022 than in the previous year.
Texas landed 3.1 million pounds of shrimp in October, the lowest total in the past two decades and significantly lower than the historical average of 4.9 million pounds. Alabama also saw its worst landings in two decades, catching just 525,000 pounds of warmwater shrimp – 52.2 percent lower than the historical average of roughly 1 million pounds. The west coast of Florida also saw historic low catch and landed just 59,000 pounds of shrimp – 84.1 percent below the historic average of 369,479 pounds. North Carolina, as well, was below historic averages with just 172,000 pounds caught compared to an average of 688,000 pounds, and Georgia landed 135,000 pounds compared to an average of 227,725 pounds.
Landings in Mississippi, meanwhile, were below historical average, but were up compared to prior years. Mississippi caught 335,000 pounds of shrimp in October, down from 536,000 pounds caught in 2021 but up from the 300,000 pounds caught in 2020.
According to the Southern Shrimp Alliance, NOAA also continued to revise its preliminary reporting of shrimp landings from previous years to reflect changes on past reporting so that "they now reflect the actual, final shrimp landings data ultimately reported by the states." However, the SSA said it has compared the data to previous preliminary data points to put the catch in historic context.
The reported data did not include information on shrimp landings in South Carolina for September or any of 2022, the NOAA announced in a press release .
Photo courtesy of R. Wellen Photography/Shutterstock
