The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration said Wednesday it had closed 4,200 square miles/10,880 square kms of federal waters in the Gulf of Mexico to royal red shrimping after a commercial shrimper discovered tar balls in his net.
NOAA said in a statement it had taken the measure "out of an abundance of caution" and that it only applied to royal red shrimp, which are found at the deep depths where the tar balls of weathered oil apparently were trawled from.
The tar balls are being analyzed by the U.S. Coast Guard to determine if they are from the catastrophic BP oil spill.
It was the first closure of a fishery in the Gulf since July 12, said NOAA spokeswoman Karrie Carnes. NOAA has since gradually reopened most of the area that was closed to commercial and recreational fishing in the wake of the BP spill that saw almost 5 million barrels of oil surge into the sea.
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