Tag: Covid-19
Since 2020 COVID-19 has significantly impacted the entire U.S seafood industry. In the Gulf of Mexico oyster, shrimp and finfish fishermen were just a few of the hardest hit. In Maine, the lobster fishery suffered a similar fate. It is important to realize Gulf fishermen are not alone in their struggles to recover.
Hurricane Ida struck the heart of Louisiana’s seafood industry as a Category 4 hurricane, wiping out homes, boats, trucks, plants and icehouses. Oyster farmers on Grand Isle lost their entire crop, processing plants from Grand Isle to Dulac lay in ruin and almost 30% of the shrimping fleet in Golden Meadow lay useless at the start of current shrimp season. “If the Louisiana seafood industry is to have any life at all in the near future,” said Gulf Seafood Foundation board member Ewell Smith, “it is all about ice.”
Louisiana oysterman Jakov Jurisic is no stranger to adversity. The Gulf oyster industry, along with other Gulf seafood, is in a historic nosedive never before seen. The perfect storm of too much water, a national pandemic and the closure of restaurant after restaurant have forced those in the industry to reexamine the path forward.
Aaron Welch, III, owner and operator of Two Docks Shellfish in Bradenton, FL, has agreed to join the Board of Directors of the Gulf Seafood Foundation. Welch joins Ed Chiles as the board’s second representative from the Sunshine State.
Can you imagine no oyster bars crowded with patrons eyeing shuckers opening one perfect Gulf oyster after another? No music crowds pressed shoulder to shoulder in Austin venues. No crowded Bourbon Street restaurants overflowing with locals and tourists. There is a new norm coming to the Gulf and the country, and life will be different.
Ryan Bradley, a fifth-generation fisherman who serves as executive director of Mississippi Commercial Fisheries United and owner of Sea Alis Seafood Company, has joined the Board of Directors of the Gulf Seafood Foundation.
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