The Last Shrimpers — How America’s Gulf Fleet Is Disappearing

Port Sulphur, Louisiana — Acy Cooper built his 31-foot trawler with his own hands. He named it after his wife, a nod to the shrimping tradition of christening boats after the women who hold the household together while the men are at sea. For decades, vessels like his were the backbone of a proud Gulf Coast industry — one that fed American tables and sustained coastal communities from Texas to the Florida Panhandle. Today, that industry is fighting for its life.

The declining number of Gulf shrimpers who are still in business are now struggling as gas prices rise and competition with cheaper imports remains high. Cooper himself has taken a second job — ferrying oil rig workers from offshore platforms — just to cover his household expenses while shrimping revenues dry up.

The crisis has been building for decades. Imported shrimp, mostly farm-raised in countries like India and Ecuador, has flooded U.S. markets for decades. By 2023, imports accounted for more than 90 percent of American shrimp consumption. The U.S. Gulf fleet’s share of the domestic market had fallen from nearly 30 percent in 1984 to just 4.5 percent in 2023, according to a report from NOAA. Adjusted for inflation, dockside prices have fallen from over six dollars a pound forty years ago to under two dollars in 2023 — an all-time low.

The financial devastation is substantial. Gulf shrimp revenue was more than halved between 2021 and 2023, falling from $489 million to $221 million. These numbers represent not just economic statistics but the collapse of a way of life. In the mid-1980s, Louisiana alone had nearly 20,000 shrimpers. Today, there are fewer than 1,400.

This year, a brief window of hope opened — and then quickly closed. There were signs of recovery last year; imported shrimp became subject to tariffs, dockside prices ticked upward, and some shrimpers reinvested in their vessels over the winter, anticipating a more successful spring season. Then fuel prices spiked.

The magnitude of the fuel burden on offshore operations is staggering. For large offshore freezer boats operating in the Gulf, a single 30-day trip can require between 9,000 and 12,000 gallons of diesel. One Alabama operator reportedly spent $47,000 on fuel before he even brought a single shrimp to market.

Blake Price, director of the Southern Shrimp Alliance, frames the problem clearly: the industry could absorb an increased fuel cost a lot better if markets were strong and hadn’t been flooded with foreign, farm-raised product. The double squeeze of elevated operating costs and collapsed dockside prices has left many operators with no viable margin.

What shrimpers like Cooper are asking for is straightforward — not a handout, but fairness. As Price put it: “We just want a level playing field.”

The broader implications extend beyond the shrimpers themselves. The Gulf’s wild-caught shrimp industry supports marine ecologists, port workers, equipment manufacturers, and coastal restaurants. Its disappearance would represent an irreversible cultural and ecological loss for American coastal communities — and leave consumers ever more dependent on imported aquaculture that operates under different environmental and labor standards.

Whether Congress will act before the fleet shrinks beyond recovery remains an open question.