Discuss: All You Can Eat

When I was a child in the 50’s an individual in a small boat could get enough shrimp for his family for a year from the gulf bays. Then liscensing changed and small shrimpers were out. Also the many chemical plants arournd the gulf coast made it so toxic I havent eaten anything out of the bays in 30 yrs. so much for eating locally. wanda, south texas

the story mentioned current by catch rates of 4 to 1. Is that bottom trawling?

Here in the Pacific Northwest there is still a spotted prawn recreational fishery. I well remember 15 years ago pulling my first pot from 300 feet down - quite a task hand over hand - and seeing a pile of these , fascinating creatures. Nowadays the fishery is so popular you can’t leave pots overnight, just a few hours.

The ads for Red Lobster Rest. were so inviting.  No longer do I want to eat there never have.  I have a 40 foot power boat and catch my own crab and if lucky enough to be north enough my own shrimp.  We have to each of us be informed and care enough to support our local businesses and look to having our grandchildren available to go out and catch their own.

Thank you. Excellent article. I have certainly lost any appetite I might have had for imported shrimp.

i live in vietnam. aquaculture is destroying vast areas of the south. farmers shifted to growing shrimp because it was easy and far more profitable than growing rice. the water tables have been affected. the waste water from the ponds is damaging the low-lying land in the south, which is vulnerable to flooding. it is a very serious problem and little has been done about it. there are periodic reports in the press about huge amounts of shrimp dying because of disease.

I just can’t beleive that our own Government would allow these nasty uninspected so called shrimp to be dumped into this Great Country . Shame on Red Lobster and any other company that would buy these nasty things . I live on the Ms & La Gulf Coast and I see our Shrimping Fleet just sitting and rusting away at the Docks , These poor Fishermen have lost everything and what does our Government do ? Nothing ? They want to talk about Stimulus plans for this economy, then how about Banning all Shrimp Imports and giving our own U.S. Fishing fleets Stimulus Money to get their boats back in the water !!  Mr. President Obama are you listening ?? We want this done!!

I actually went to Red Lobster for a school project the morning before I ran into this article and was given a less than confident answer on where their shrimp was really coming from. It prompted me to look further into it and I am glad I did! This is a brilliant article and I really appreciate getting the chance to read and comment on it. I have a degree in aquaculture and I am currently working towards a degree in environmental studies and coastal management so these are issues I am truly passionate about. I just wanted to commend you on raising awarness on this particular matter because you touched on so many critical points that really needed to be addressed. I am pretty sure Iv’e tortured all my friends and family members with how much I have talked about it in the recent days, so again, thank you!

Thanks, Christy, glad you asked the Red Lobster employees about the shrimp, hope you look into it some more - sounds like you’re in a great position to do so. When people hear what an atrocity most farmed shrimp is, it can change their mind about it. A good resource is Mangrove Action Project, http://www.mangroveactionproject.org. Sign up for their enewsletter, it’s always got interesting world news about the aquaculture industry, in particular shrimp and how mangroves are effected.

Erik, Orion Grassroots Network