Other places to get shrimp

You might remember this kernel of wisdom from a few years back.

BP representative Hugh Depland said that while the company wasn’t sure exactly when more workers would be hired, the $239 billion company was spending “a lot of money, time and effort to bring this event to a close.”   And to those worried restaurateurs facing rising prices for shrimp and oysters? In the words of fellow BP rep Randy Prescott: “Louisiana isn’t the only place that has shrimp.”

He's right. It isn't the only place.  But we're crossing the other places off the list too.

In 2012, the most recent year for which data is available, nearly 5.8 million pounds of fish were commercially harvested from Galveston Bay, at a combined wholesale value of $16.4 million.

More than one-10th of that income comes from shrimp, which are among the most vulnerable species to the oil spill, in part because the brown shrimp’s spawning season is already underway, beginning in earnest near the end of March. The spawning happens in the Gulf of Mexico, but soon afterward the new shrimp larvae will spend days, if not weeks, drifting in the water toward the bay and shoreline marshes. That’s where they will metamorphose into baby shrimp, eventually maturing into adults and returning to the Gulf after several months.