Tag Archives: Georgia
White shrimp Georgia’s official crustacean
Gov. Brian Kemp brought his bill-signing tour to Brunswick Thursday, signing a package of measures related to coastal issues. House Bill 1341 declares the white shrimp Georgia’s official crustacean. White shrimp account for 70% of the state’s annual shrimp harvest, Kemp told coastal Georgia political and business leaders during a ceremony at the state Department of Natural Resources Coastal Regional Headquarters. House Speaker Jon Burns said having an official state crustacean will help promote Georgia white shrimp to consumers at restaurants and grocery stores. “It’s a family business. It’s gone on in our state for generations,” said Burns, R-Newington. “We want to ensure the opportunity continues to exist in the future.” more, >>CLICK TO READ<< 10:21
Coastal Georgia Shrimping: A new season of uncertainty, possibilities and hope
In a word, “difficult,” said Dee Kicklighter of their most recent shrimping season. Kicklighter, who has worked with Mathews for about eight years, has seen first-hand how the unpredictability of the business can be costly. “You plan for something to be one price, and then the next week you come back, and it could be potentially thousands of dollars more, depending on what you’re dealing with,” he said of fluctuating prices, including fuel. Over the years, Mathews said the ever-changing cost of fuel has taken a toll on the number of shrimpers in the industry. It’s not just Georgia shrimpers contending with the negative effects from imports. North Carolina, Texas, Louisiana, Florida and other coastal states are also feeling the friction of narrowing profit margins that threaten their way of life. Photos, more, >>click to read<< 09:15
From Bubba Gump to bust? American shrimpers face extinction.
On a chilly December morning, the captain of the Miss Patti is ready to throw his lines and go shrimping – well, almost. Brian Jordan’s deckhand is in a foul mood, and it’s no wonder why. Is any of this worth it? Here on the tiny working waterfront of Tybee Island, Georgia, the hesitancy is logical. Shrimp prices cratered this year, and hundreds of boats from Brownsville, Texas, to Harkers Island, North Carolina, remained dockside. The problem hasn’t been a lack of shrimp or the price of diesel. Instead, freezers across the United States are filled to the gills. A glut of imported shrimp has dropped the price to about half of what shrimp boats received in the 1980s. At stake is the livelihood of Mr. Jordan and shrimpers like him nationwide. They can’t compete with overseas rivals who raise and harvest shrimp in lower-cost “aquaculture’’ farms. more, >>click to read<< 13:06
Recreational, commercial shrimp season closes in state waters
Georgia’s commercial and recreational food shrimp season closed on Thursday, Jan. 18, and will open again in May. This season saw 184 licensed shrimp trawlers in Georgia’s water, 117 of which were Georgia residents. On average, these shrimpers harvested 16.788 pounds of shrimp tails per hour spent trawling, the highest catch per unit effort on record. The closure affects Georgia’s territorial waters three nautical miles out to sea. This year’s is the highest CPUE CRD has recorded. Diesel fuel prices continue to challenge Georgia’s shrimping industry, with the national average price of No. 2 diesel fuel sitting at $4.214, according to the U.S. Energy Information Administration. more, >>lick to read<< 19:20
Coastal Georgia shrimpers fear loss of industry as foreign seafood crowds market
“Just when you think it can’t get any worse, it gets worse,” said Pat Mathews, the owner of the Lazaretto Packing Co. on Tybee Island, as he walked away from a truck idling in the loading zone. Early on a Monday morning in October in the height of shrimp season the driver had come to pick up a load of freshly caught shrimp from the James W. Salyers, a shrimp boat captained by David Attia. The driver delivered disappointing news, informing Pat that this would be the last load he would be able to pick up for the foreseeable future. The Mathews family has been in the seafood business for over a century. Where they once owned several seafood markets, their business now centers on the dock they own at Tybee, one of the few hubs of the industry that has been an iconic business on Georgia’s 100-mile coast. >>click to read<< 10:53
Survivor From Lost Fishing Boat Saved After Coast Guard Ended Search
This week, the U.S. Coast Guard ended searches for two commercial fishing vessels that each disappeared without a trace, one in Washington and another in Georgia. The Washington case ended in a miracle: a crewmember was found alive after formal search efforts had ended. On Tuesday, Coast Guard Station Grays Harbor announced that it had launched a search for a 43-foot commercial fishing vessel, the Evening, which was nine days overdue. Miraculously, one crewmember of the Evening survived and was found by a good Samaritan vessel on Thursday morning – a day after the formal search ended. He was floating in a life raft off the west coast of Vancouver Island, near Tofino. The whereabouts of the other crewmember are not known. On Thursday, the U.S. Coast Guard suspended a search for a commercial fishing vessel F/V Carol Ann that had gone missing with three crewmembers off the coast of Brunswick, Georgia. >>click to read<< 07:15
Coast Guard searching for overdue fishing vessel 80 miles off Brunswick, Georgia
The Coast Guard is searching for an overdue 31-foot fishing vessel, Friday, 80 miles offshore Brunswick, Georgia. Coast Guard Sector Charleston watchstanders received a report from the owner of the fishing vessel Carol Anne stating he hired a crew of three people that failed to return on Wednesday as scheduled. The owner stated the crew extends fishing trips to maximize their catch but was growing concerned due to their last communication with the crew being six days ago. >>click to read<< 20:05
McIntosh County commissioners pass resolution to support local shrimpers
The McIntosh County Board of Commissioners passed a resolution to seek protection for the shrimping industry at a special called meeting on Thursday. The resolution states that an increase of imported shrimp in the United States have “continued to decimate the local shrimping industry’s ability to market and sell wild caught domestic shrimp.” The resolution passed unanimously during Thursday’s meeting. Local leaders hope the more cities and counties that jump on board with similar resolutions, the closer they’ll get to grabbing the attention of Congress and the federal government. >>click to read<< 16:48
Beaufort’s shrimping industry on the brink. Local boats sit while imported catch floods market
Thursday at Village Creek on St. Helena Island was another picture postcard-worthy morning with an American flag lilting in a slight southeast breeze near the shrimper Gracie Bell — idly tied to the dock. At Sea Eagle Market, a catch of shrimp swept up in the nets of trawlers in recent days are being processed by small group of dockside workers. They clean the valuable seafood crop harvested from waters as far away as North Carolina to the northeast coast of Florida before being sold locally and up and down the Palmetto State’s coast. After this recent harvest was completed, the boats returned, as they always do — to Village Creek, home base for shrimping on Fripp and Hunting Islands in Beaufort County and beyond. Against this serene backdrop, a storm is brewing that threatens destruction. It is not the threat of foul weather, these shrimpers have seen generations of bad weather days. The storm brewing is economic for the community of shrimpers and related businesses. >click to read< 10:10
Shrimp Alliance request fisheries disaster declaration
There’s no other way to put it if you ask Aaron Wallace. Despite a decent catch by the eight shrimp boats that supply Anchored Shrimp Co. in Brunswick, the prices fishermen are getting for their hauls aren’t what they should be. “It’s been one of our toughest years,” Wallace said. He and his father, John Wallace, own Anchored Shrimp and operate the Gale Force, one of the boats that serve the company’s retail and wholesale business. The Southern Shrimp Alliance, for which John Wallace serves as a member of the board of directors, is calling the flood of imported shrimp a crisis. The alliance asked the governors of Alabama, Florida, Georgia, Louisiana, Mississippi, North Carolina, South Carolina and Texas in a letter on Aug. 25 to collectively request a fisheries disaster determination by the U.S. Secretary of Commerce for the U.S. shrimp fishery. >>click to read<< 11:06
Coast Guard, good Samaritans assist 4 aboard shrimping vessel taking on water near St. Simons Island
The Coast Guard and good Samaritans assisted four people Tuesday after their shrimping vessel began taking on water near St. Simons Island, Georgia. Coast Guard Sector Charleston watchstanders received a notification at 10:33 p.m, via VHF-FM channel 16 marine radio, from the Joann B, a 75-foot shrimping vessel, stating their vessel was taking on water 4 miles east of St. Simons Island. The boat crew and air crew arrived on scene and began rendering assistance with three dewatering pumps. Good Samaritans from the fishing vessel Miss Vicky and commercial salvage also assisted with dewatering efforts. Photos, video. >click to read< 16:37
Shrimp season may be slow, opens June 20
Georgia’s shrimp season should start well when it opens June 20, but scientists and shrimpers expect it will taper off as fall settles in the Golden Isles. That has been the case the past couple of years when shrimpers are allowed to trawl in state waters, which extend to three miles offshore, said Frank Owens, owner of City Market in Brunswick. He expects to see the same thing this year when unloading boats at the market’s docks in Brunswick. There are some of the desirable, plump, white roe shrimp being caught already. But how good those catches are and for how long that quality lasts is hard to tell, Owens said. “Today I unloaded some boats that were about half white shrimp and half brown shrimp,” Owens said this week. “These last few years, spring has been good, but fall has been a bit off.” >click to read< 09:18
Lowcountry is the last ‘wild west’ for blue crabs. Crabbers call for change.
In February, David Richardson drove to Columbia from his home in Charleston to speak to a room of state senators about his life as a South Carolina crabber, which, at the moment, “is kind of miserable.” But it wasn’t always miserable. Which is why he drove two hours to the Statehouse, a place he had never been nor expected to visit. The crabber thought about wearing a Hawaiian shirt, then thought twice: “I wore a suit, thank God.” As crab numbers fell over the past decade across the Eastern Seaboard, South Carolina did nothing, but North Carolina increased its management actions. It designated some areas as “no-fishing” spawning sanctuaries. And Georgia decided to limit the number of commercial crabbing licenses to under 100. Photos, >click to read< 08:39
Shrimp boat capt. says fire ‘scary,’ debris washes ashore
Roger “Rabbit” Cummings doesn’t know exactly how long he and the two crew members of the Miss Hopkins shrimp trawler floated in the water after jumping from the burning boat, but it seemed like a while. Cummings, the vessel’s captain, guesses they were adrift for about 45 minutes, donning lifejackets and keeping a tight grip on a hatch from the vessel before a speed boat came by and pulled the trio from the water while the Miss Hopkins was engulfed in flames nearby. They were about four miles off the coast of Jekyll Island. “It seemed like a long time,” Cummings said, “But it might not have been that long.” Eventually, a smaller boat that had seen the black plume of smoke on the horizon while in the Jekyll Sound pulled them from the water. The smoke was visible Friday afternoon on both Jekyll and St. Simons islands. >click to read< 08:07
Three rescued as shrimp boat catches fire off Jekyll
Three people were rescued about 4 miles off shore of Jekyll Island Friday after jumping from a burning shrimp boat that sent a plume of black smoke across the horizon visible from the beaches of Jekyll and St. Simons Island. U.S. Coast Guard Sector Charleston called the Brunswick station around 12:30 p.m. to report that a shrimp boat, the Miss Hopkins from Darien, was burning and three people were on board, a Coast Guard representative said Friday. >click to read< 14:44
Darien, preparing for the 55th Blessing of the Fleet
The City of Darien is gearing up for their biggest event of the year – that’s the annual Blessing of the Fleet! Every year, local shrimpers drive their boats under the Darien Bridge and clergy members at the top of the bridge bless the boats for a prosperous fishing season. Organizers say they’re looking forward to bigger crowds and some new additions this year. It’s the 55th year of the Darien tradition. The three-day long festival features vendors, musical performances, a worship service, parade through town, and of course, the shrimping boat parade. Video, schedule, >click to read< 18:48
Black Sea Bass fishing return
Locally caught black sea bass may be back on the menu in the Golden Isles from November through April during calving season for North Atlantic right whales. The Georgia Conservancy has spent the past two years in a research project funded by UGA Marine Extension Service and Georgia Sea Grant to study the innovation of on-demand traps in an effort to eliminate the threat of fishing gear entanglement of the whales. Black sea bass fishing off the Georgia coast has been banned during calving season for more than a decade to help protect the whales. >click to read< 15:24