Tag Archives: Joe Spraggins

In Depth: Mississippi Has Invested Millions of Dollars to Save Its Oysters. They’re Disappearing Anyway.

By 2015, it was clear that Mississippi oysters were in crisis. Then-Gov. Phil Bryant convened an oyster council to come up with solutions. “This is the soybean of the sea,” Bryant said at a community gathering in 2015 at which he unveiled the council’s report. “We’re going to make sure everyone enjoys it.” The council set a goal of producing 1 million sacks of oysters a year by 2025. But almost a decade later, that goal is nowhere in sight: In a region that helped pioneer the oyster industry, only 457 sacks were harvested in 2022, none of them from the public reefs that the state had worked to restore. “They’re just wasting money,” said Keath Ladner, a former oyster fisherman whose family was in the seafood business for three generations. “And the fishermen know this.” Video, Photos, >click to read< 09:37

Mississippi Commission on Marine Resources talk Bonnet Carré Spillway, CARES Act funding

Many fishermen got some help from that $1.5 million of CARES Act money that was granted to the state of Mississippi, with most of that going to the seafood industry. $734,222 of that money went to local commercial fishermen, $451,284 went to seafood dealers and processors, and $239,179 of it went to the charter boat fleet.,, At Tuesday’s Commission on Marine Resources meeting, Joe Spraggins, Department of Marine Resources executive director, explained the process of how $21 million in Bonnet Carré Spillway relief funding will get to those in the industry. >click to read< 18:25

Mississippi’s shrimp season will open Thursday. It doesn’t look good.

Mississippi’s shrimp season will open this Thursday, June 20 at 6am, despite samples showing smaller shrimp than typical for opening day. That’s the decision from Tuesday’s Commission on Marine Resources meeting. It’s not a cause for celebration though. It’s more of a sign of desperation. Usually, the legal count for shrimp must be 68 shrimp per pound before the season is opened. Right now, samples are showing 112,,, Experts also report that brown shrimp reproduction is down 90%. “I don’t think it really matters. I think the situation now is only getting worse, so why don’t we take the best we can? The only chance we have now is to allow our shrimpers to have some chance to have a life this year,” said Joe Spraggins, the director of the Department of Marine Resources. >click to read<19:36