Ga. shrimpers fear loss of industry

– November 22, 2023 –

Good morning! With Thanksgiving so close, we’re thinking of what fills us with gratitude. Topping the list in Coastal Georgia is sea life, including endangered North Atlantic right whales, which, as we’re thankful to report below, have been sighted swimming back to Georgia. And with tomorrow such a food-focused day, we also have a timely look at Georgia’s shrimp industry. To top it off, we have two stories related to gardening and lawn care. Thanks for reading!

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Dive into the local shrimp scene

Shrimp probably wasn’t on the Pilgrims’ original Thanksgiving menu, but it will show up some holiday tables in Coastal Georgia on Thursday. If you’re eating any shrimp this weekend — or even if you’re not — The Current’s Justin Taylor has a story, an explainer and photo essay you won’t want to miss. Taylor shows how the once-robust industry has shrunk and how the remaining shrimpers struggle to survive in a market that’s flooded with cheap, farm-raised shrimp imported from overseas.

Some local shrimp crews say this season may be their last.  “If you can’t sell your product, they can’t stay in business. It doesn’t matter how good you are,” said Pat Mathews, the owner of the Lazaretto Packing Co. on Tybee Island.

Read the main story here.

Spend a day on a Georgia shrimp boat in this photo essay.

For an explainer on shrimp costs, click here.

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Gas mowers, blowers pollute

It’s not news that gas-powered lawn equipment pollutes more than its battery-powered counterparts. But the nonprofit Environment America recently quantified how much air pollution gas mowers and blowers emit. It’s a surprising amount, even compared to pollution from motor vehicles. In Georgia, gas-powered lawn and garden equipment emitted an estimated 864 tons of harmful “fine particulate” air pollution in 2020 – an amount equivalent to the pollution emitted by 9.2 million typical cars over the course of a year, as Dave Williams of Capitol Beat reports.

Click here to read the full story.

“It’s absurd that we have been tolerating so much harmful pollution and noise just to cut grass and maintain landscapes,” said Jennette Gayer, Environment Georgia’s director. “The good news is cleaner, quieter electric-powered lawn equipment is capable, affordable, and readily available.”

That cleaner equipment may be available, but it’s far from the default choice. Case in point: Savannah City Council on Tuesday authorized the purchase of a $75,000 gas-powered mower without a word of discussion, despite the fact that the city has adopted a “100% Savannah plan” with a goal of having all its energy needs generated from safe, clean, renewable energy by 2050.

Spokesman Joshua Peacock wrote in an email to The Current that the city is currently focused on the first goal of the plan, converting to renewable electricity by 2035. “Fossil fuels used for transportation, space heating, water heating, and industry, as well as city-owned lawn and garden equipment will be included in that (second) phase with a goal of reaching 100% renewable energy community wide by 2050,” he wrote.

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Right whales return

Right on time, right whales have returned to the Southeast. Scientists logged two sightings of the highly endangered whales over the weekend off Hilton Head Island. The whales migrate to the Southeast from the waters off new England and Canada every winter to give birth. The last calving season’s tally of babies was 11, many of them born off Georgia. But that was far below the average of 24 calves produced per year in the 2000s, the New England Aquarium reports.

Only about 350 right whales remain, and only about 80 of them are adult females. To protect whales from being hit by ships, an all-too-common peril, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration instituted speed limits for ships at least 65 feet long in areas where whales are expected to be. But an effort to expand that protection to include smaller vessels has stalled, with Coastal Georgia Congressman Buddy Carter among those objecting to it.

Track sightings of right whales on Whale Map.

In other whale news, a female Gervais’ beaked whale calf washed ashore dead in North Carolina recently. Examining the stranded calf, biologists discovered milk in its stomach, indicating it was still nursing. Further examination of the stomach revealed a crumpled mylar balloon, which had obstructed the whale’s ability to properly digest food, leading to starvation.  

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It’s getting warmer here

The U.S. Department of Agriculture last week released a new version of its Plant Hardiness Zone Map, updating this tool for gardeners and researchers for the first time since 2012. About half the U.S., including much of Coastal Georgia, moved up a zone. Gardeners and growers consult the map to determine which plants are most likely to thrive at their location.  The designations reflect the average lowest winter temperature for the location over a specified time. 

Coastal Georgia was previously a mix of Zones 9a and 8b. With the update, all six coastal counties are entirely Zone 9a, which corresponds to an average extreme low temperature of 20-25 degrees F.

The USDA advises gardeners that a zone change isn’t a call to uproot your garden. “What has thrived in your yard will most likely continue to thrive,” the site advises.

Despite upzoning half of the country, the USDA also cautioned against attributing the shift to climate change. “Temperature updates to plant hardiness zones are not necessarily reflective of global climate change because of the highly variable nature of the extreme minimum temperature of the year, as well as the use of increasingly sophisticated mapping methods and the inclusion of data from more weather stations,” officials at USDA noted.

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If you have feedback, questions, concerns, or just like what you see, let us know at staff@thecurrentga.org.

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