Hurricanes add to Gulf seafood industry woes

Bayou La Batre, Ala. (AP) --Hurricane Gustav left shrimp rotting on vessels across southeastern Louisiana, where fishing communities without power also lack ice.

It knocked some oyster boats from the harbor to the highway on the Mississippi coast.

And oyster reefs in the region remain closed until officials determine they're safe from storm debris.

Yet despite these effects, much of the commercial seafood industry in the Gulf of Mexico was spared major losses by Gustav, and any potential rise in seafood prices was blunted by an abundance of imports.

The threat from Hurricane Ike is substantial, however — particularly for shrimpers, oystermen and fish processors in coastal Louisiana and the rest of the northern Gulf still recovering from Gustav. They were already seeing profit margins squeezed by the healthy imports.

Forecasters at the National Hurricane Center warn that, after passing into the Gulf of Mexico sometime Tuesday night, Ike could make landfall in the U.S. over the weekend in Louisiana or Texas. It was a Category 1 storm late Monday, but forecasters expect it to strengthen.

Along the Mississippi and Louisiana coasts, some boats and harbors were wrecked by Gustav on Sept. 1, while other vessels survived but had their catches rot due to the lack of ice. Even before Gustav, fishermen had been distressed by high fuel costs and low prices for their catches, and it has taken years to recover from the devastation of 2005's Hurricane Katrina. Some fishermen never returned to the industry.

Marine biologist Mark Schexnayder of Metarie, La., a coastal adviser for Louisiana State University's Sea Grant program, said that because of power outages there was no ice in storm-stricken southeastern Louisiana, at the peak of its white shrimp season.

"Boats are parked with rotting catch," he said. "You can't shrimp without ice."

Oyster reefs also have been closed until Louisiana officials can check them out for storm debris. READ MORE