LOUISIANA— GREATEST IN TEE PRODUCTION OF 

 SHRIMP— PENAEUS SETIFERUS. 



By E. A. Tulian, 



State Conservation Commission, 



New Orleans, La. 



According to the United States Census Report for the year 

 190S, the total shrimp production in the United States amounted 

 to 14,374,000 pounds. Of these, Louisiana produced 8,580,000 

 pounds, or approximately 60% of the whole. This same report 

 credited the Gulf Coast region with having furnished 12,561,500 

 pounds of the entire production. It will, therefore, be found that 

 Louisiana contributed about 69% of the shrimp of that region in 

 1908. 



From statistics collected by the United States Bureau of 

 Fisheries for the year 1916, we learn that the entire catch of shrimp 

 over the territory extending from the northern boundary of North 

 Carolina to the western boundary of Texas, amounted to 43,942,105 

 pounds. Louisiana produced 23,160,586 pounds of this total, or 

 about 53% of all. The Gulf Coast States alone produced 38,936,680 

 pounds, including those caught along the Atlantic Coast of Florida, 

 and of this total, Louisiana produced 60%. If we were to elimi- 

 nate Florida's catch on the Atlantic coast, Louisiana's catch 

 would amount to approximately 85% of the entire Gulf Coast 

 region. 



Before going into further details, it might be well to give a 

 brief comparison here of all other commercially available species 

 of shrimp found in Louisiana waters. In the majority of species 

 of shrimp, the female, after egg laying, carries its eggs attached 

 to the swimmerets under the tail or abdomen until they are 

 hatched. In Louisiana there is only one species of this group 

 of egg-carrying shrimp which is sufficiently large to be consumed 

 as food. This is the so-called river shrimp, Manor obrachium 

 ohionensis, a rather stout species, which, however, is only three 

 inches long. This species inhabits the Mississippi River and other 

 fresh water streams of Louisiana, where it is taken by means of 

 baited traps, perhaps a hundred being caught in each trap under 



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