Louisiana officials will meet this week to set the opening of the white shrimp season, a welcome sign on fishing grounds in the Gulf of Mexico, which were devastated by the oil spill.
"That's going to signal the beginning of our fishery coming back," says Harlon Pearce, who chairs the Louisiana Seafood Promotion and Marketing Board.
The state Wildlife and Fisheries Commission will meet Thursday in Baton Rouge to discuss the fall shrimp season, which traditionally begins the third Monday of August.
The Deepwater Horizon spill, which began April 20, led state and federal officials to shut down thousands of miles of habitat for fishing, shrimping, crabbing and oystering, throwing thousands of commercial fishers out of work.
Though no more than about 40% of U.S. Gulf fisheries — the majority in federal waters 3 miles from shore — were shut down, according to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), public fear of oil-contaminated seafood cut deep into sales.
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