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South Atlantic Shrimp Fishery Posts Above-Average Harvest Year in 2020

Through information made available from the state governments of Florida, Georgia, South Carolina, and North Carolina, the Southern Shrimp Alliance has compiled shrimp landings data in the South Atlantic for 2020 and the twenty years preceding it.

Last year, 21.9 million pounds of shrimp (headless, shell-on equivalent weight) was landed on the east coast of Florida and in Georgia, South Carolina, and North Carolina. While this was down from 23.1 million pounds in 2019, the total was roughly eight percent higher than the prior twenty-year historical average of 20.3 million pounds. It was also the fourth highest annual volume of shrimp landings reported on the east coast since 2004.

Below average landings of shrimp on the east coast of Florida (7.1 million pounds) and in South Carolina (1.8 million pounds) were compensated for by landings in Georgia (3.3 million pounds) and North Carolina (9.7 million pounds) well in excess of the prior twenty-year historical average.

As shown in the chart below, Texas was the leading producer of U.S. wild-caught shrimp in 2020, followed by Louisiana, Florida, Alabama, North Carolina, Mississippi, Georgia, and South Carolina.

Through the Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation, the state of Florida currently makes monthly commercial fisheries landing data obtained from trip tickets, including shrimp landings, available through its “Commercial Fisheries Landings Summaries” page (https://public.myfwc.com/FWRI/PFDM/ReportCreator.aspx). These data are available from 1986 through 2020, with the most recent reporting subject to further revision and not final.

In addition, the Southern Shrimp Alliance is grateful to Georgia’s Department of Natural Resources, South Carolina’s Department of Natural Resources, and the Division of Marine Fisheries of the North Carolina Department of Environmental Quality for making shrimp landings data available to the domestic shrimp industry.

These data from the states of the South Atlantic supplement information from the Fishery Monitoring Branch of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) Fisheries’ Southeast Fisheries Science Center. The Center publishes data on monthly shrimp landings in the Gulf of Mexico. However, similar information regarding monthly shrimp landings in the South Atlantic is not published by NOAA.

The Southern Shrimp Alliance has compiled these data in charts accessible at the link below.

As these charts make clear, recent landings information continues to demonstrate the importance of the U.S. commercial shrimp industry to the economy of coastal communities throughout the South Atlantic. Substantial quantities of fresh, wholesome, local, wild-caught shrimp are readily available to American consumers from shrimpers in each of these states.

Please click the following link to view SSA’s compilation and summary of annual shrimp landings in the East Coast from 2000 through 2020: https://shrimpalliance.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/04/East-Coast-Compilation-2000-through-2020.pdf

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