NOAA has now released shrimp landings data from the Gulf of Mexico for the month of December and all of 2016.
Last month, 5.8 million pounds of shrimp were landed in the Gulf of Mexico, roughly 34.0% below the prior sixteen-year historical average for the month (8.9 million pounds). This was the lowest total of shrimp landed in the Gulf in the month of December in the years for which the Southern Shrimp Alliance has catalogued NOAA data going back to 2000.
For the year, 93.8 million pounds of shrimp have been landed in the Gulf, 27.6% below the average landings for the prior sixteen years (129.7 million pounds).
The “shrimp statistics” reported by NOAA indicate that 2016 was the fourth straight year of declines in the volume of shrimp landed in the Gulf of Mexico. However, the volume reported of shrimp landed in the Gulf of Mexico in NOAA’s annual publication Fisheries of the United States has differed from the amounts reported in the “shrimp statistics.” For example, NOAA’s “shrimp statistics” report that 106.9 million pounds of shrimp were landed in the Gulf in 2015, down from 114.5 million pounds in 2014. However, the 2015 Fisheries of the United States reported that 123.9 million pounds of shrimp were landed in the Gulf in 2015 (HLSO-equivalent weight), up from 116.6 million pounds in 2014. It is likely that the 2016 Fisheries of the United States, when published by NOAA, will report a higher volume of shrimp landed in the Gulf of Mexico than that reported by the “shrimp statistics” monitored by the Southern Shrimp Alliance.
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