"Big Shrimpin" on the Discovery Channel

[Hank49]

There is a new show on. New here at least. Big Shrimpin about the Gulf shrimp boats.

I can really relate to the crews. My kind of guys out there trying to make a living.
BUT, the bycatch is unbelievable. I'd heard about it but never seen it like what you see when they dump their nets on deck.
The come in sometimes with full nets, but hardly any shrimp.
I know spearos in the Gulf who follow shrimp boats because of the tuna, amber jack, wahoo and other top predators that follow because of the bycatch dumped over the side.

I can't believe that the shrimpers think it's cool that they're on TV. This can't be good for them. They're already in financial trouble because aquacultured shrimp are produced for about US$.80 per lb.

Pretty destructive method of fishing. If you haven't seen the show and you're a diver, it'll probably piss you off.

 

[giantfan]

I have been watching it myself and was amazed that they throw all those butterfish over the side..... I do a lot of tuna fishing up here in the NE and we use butterfish for bait. The cost of them has more then doubled in the last two years(they are now over $50.00 per flat).... I can't believe that they can't make any money on them. I guess it's possible that they aren't allowed to keep them but throwing thousands of dead ones in the drink is just horrible.

 

[VooDooGasMan]

Hank was having dinner at friends house last night and that was on along with an aligator show, he had music playing so I never herd anything but seen starfish n all. I did think to my self having to hand sort all the shrimp in a bucket. and that boat was a clean white and bright, looked to new like set up for this show only. I could tell they were just raking the bottom bare.

 

[Thiad]

It bothered me greatly (yes, it pissed me off). The by-catch was just incredible including the number of sharks and rays in any given drag (not to mention the other animals). I read that for every pound of shrimp, there is approximately 15 pounds of by-catch.

But beyond just the vast waste, I cannot imagine the destruction below the water. What does the sea-floor look like after they've pulled up their nets?

 

[Hank49]

Probably something like this

 

[Thiad]

Yeah, you're probably right.

 

[drbill]

40 years ago I spent a day on a Mexican shrimp boat in the Sea of Cortez to show my marine biology students how that fishery operates. The bycatch was horrible. I did collect a number of specimens from it for the L. A. County Museum of Natural History's Ichthyology Dept. We didn't dive to directly observe the damage on the bottom. Later I spent several winters working as a marine biologist and underwater videographer on a Lindblad Expeditions eco-cruise ship. Lindblad would not serve shrimp at that time because they had not found a sustainable source (kudos to them).

 

[Thiad]

As with so much else, the desire for the huge catches is consumer driven. I stopped buying wild caught shrimp a few years back simply because of the by catch and turned to farm raised. However, farm raised shrimp, especially that from Asia, is fraught with so many issues - environmental destruction, diseases, overuse of antibiotics, that much of what is sent to this country for sale is prohibited for safety reasons.

Damned if you do, damned if you don't. Another species off the dinner menu.

 

[VooDooGasMan]

There not farmed here but a dive the other day in the puget sound I was making my way to 200' and I remember a post of this guy seeing the gound moving from narc and it was eel's covered the bottom. Anyways that thought came up when i was moving across the slope and the shrimp were jumping all over like the ground was moving, of course I do not get that narced at 200'.

On another note hank I did post a pic of duck with me and posted not sure if you seen it, here it is again.

 

[Plane Trouble]

Pretty much most of whats on Discovery and the History channel piss me off these, days... Oh lets not forget Animal Planet either... All of these channels are starting to be bad for the environment. You've got Swamp People, where they shoot Alligators. Theres also Swamp Loggers - Great, wetland destruction. Theres Extreme Loggers, again overt natural destruction... Gold Rush.... Overt environmental destruction, yet again. Big Shrimpin, destructive fishing practices... And then of course on Animal Planet you have a whole slew of shows focusing on animal's killing people, which may be entertaining but does the animals no good at all. The problem is, that these channels have run out of most original ideas, which is why we are left with show's like "Moon Shiners", and variations of the "Deadliest Catch" theme: Big Shrimpin and Swamp People.... I do watch "Flying Wild Alaska" for obvious reasons, and I enjoy good old fashion nature documentaries such as the ones they made about 15 years ago that weren't so sensational, and mostly factual: Planet Earth, Life, Life in Slow Motion, Human Planet etc or anything narrated by David Attenborough...