Extreme Warmth, Drought Pose Menace to Gulf South 2024 Crawfish Harvest

With crawfish season just a few months away for the Gulf South, there appears to be some trigger for alarm as producers are coping with a 3-headed monster relating to crawfish manufacturing.

One drawback is one thing that hasn’t been seen in over a decade. The bottom is so dry that the underground burrow the place the crawfish spend the summer time has been cracked open due to the shrinking soil floor. This enables air and warmth to get to the crawfish which often can discover refuge underground the place it’s moist and funky.

The second issue that’s taking a toll on the crawfish harvest is the rise in salinity ranges in water sources that producers rely upon to flood their ponds. In response to information from the Nationwide Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration and US Geological Survey, each water stage gauge situated alongside a 450-mile stretch from Jackson, MS, to the Ohio River is at or under the low-water threshold. This has induced salt water from the Gulf Of Mexico to maneuver upriver so far as New Orleans. Different saltwater our bodies of water are additionally feeding into what is generally thought of freshwater tributaries which farmers use to flood their fields. Water samples had been taken by native crawfish farmers in Vermillion Parish which is residence to quite a few crawfish fields. The samples confirmed sodium ranges starting from 1,780 elements per million, or ppm, to three,100 ppm, which is taken into account excessive for farming crawfish.
The third factor that’s hammering crawfish harvests is the rice and different forages which have died. These crops are essential to the crawfish’s meals provide because the freshwater crustacean feeds on it over the winter.

Crawfish on common had been bought at 2.49 a pound final spring in Louisiana, however this yr with the costs for labor, irrigation, and gear equivalent to boats and traps costing greater than ever. Seafood markets are projecting these costs to double if the drought continues.
Todd Badeaux owns and operates a neighborhood crawfish farm in Breaux Bridge, La. He stated he’s by no means seen situations like those he’s seeing proper now. “It’s simply unhealthy on all fronts. First off, we’re coping with inflation and all the things prices extra. Then you definitely add to it the dry climate since June. Add to it a record-setting warmth wave this previous summer time and it’s shaping as much as be a extremely tough yr for crawfish, he stated.
For now, we are able to solely look to the skies for assist as a wet winter may flip issues round. Badeaux stays optimistic. “Issues all the time appear to work out. I’ve been down this highway earlier than with the crops and we all the time handle. We’ll get by means of it,” he stated.

Keith Lusher

Keith Lusher is an award successful outside journalist that resides in Covington, Louisiana. He owns and operates NorthshoreFishingReport.com and writes a weekly outside column for the Slidell Unbiased Newspaper. He additionally writes for the St.Tammany Parish Tourism Fee’s LouisianaNorthshore.com and Louisiana Northshore Discover Journal. He’s the previous host of The Northshore Fishing Report Radio Present and is on the board of the Louisiana Out of doors Writers Affiliation. Keith contributes to quite a few publications each on-line and in print and prides himself on selling South Louisiana’s distinctive fishery.