NOAA’s reporting for landings of shrimp in the Gulf of Mexico for the month of March showed a slight decline in the volume of shrimp harvested this year (3.46 million pounds) compared to March of last year (3.51 million pounds). However, the amount of shrimp landed by fishermen in the Gulf last month was 52.1 percent higher than the prior sixteen-year historical average for the month (2.28 million pounds).
Similarly, while total shrimp landings in the region for the first quarter of this year (10.16 million pounds) were slightly below those of the first quarter of last year (10.42 million pounds), they were 10.3 percent above the prior sixteen-year historical average for the Gulf (9.21 million pounds).
In total, shrimp landings in the first quarter of the year are a small portion of annual harvests. Over the last fifteen years, shrimp landed in the first three months have comprised between five and eleven percent to the total amount of shrimp landed in the region.
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