South Carolina shrimpers are in troubled waters. Here’s how the industry is seeking relief

A NOAA report from the agency’s Fishery Monitoring Branch revealed that over 119 million pounds of warmwater shrimp was imported to the United States in 2022.

Foreign, frozen shrimp is sold for far less than wild-caught native shrimp, and to local shrimpers and fishmongers like Galimitz, the price is hard to beat. That cost-cutting is what is hurting the more expensive locals.

“Nobody wants to buy it because it’s $2 more a pound,” he said of a South Carolina catch. “Tastes 10 times better, no preservatives, no chemicals, it’s U.S.-caught. But nobody wants it because they’re going to save $1.50 or $2 a pound,” Galimitz said.

Declaring disaster

Bryan Jones is a first-generation shrimper in McClellanville.

Before his life became centered around nets and saltwater and fresh catch, he was a vice president of a wealth management firm in Florida.

The work is exhausting and the days on the deck of his trawler, the Pamela Sue, are long, Jones said. There are risks involved with shrimping — financial, environmental, physical — but he saw an opportunity to create a livelihood for his family and couldn’t resist.

He joins at a time when fishermen are struggling, and more are deciding to leave the trade altogether.

“The average age of a shrimp boat captain, I believe, is 65,” Jones said. “What we need is an injection of youth in the industry to sustain it.”

The shrimper is the vice president of the South Carolina Shrimper’s Association, a nonprofit organization dedicated to promoting and protecting the shrimping industry in the Palmetto State.

The SC Shrimper’s Association, joined by the Southern Shrimp Alliance and other activist groups, have called on local, state and federal leaders to declare an economic disaster due to the impacts of shrimp dumping.

A bipartisan bill in the U.S. House of Representatives, co-sponsored by a handful of representatives of the nation’s coastal communities including Lowcountry Republican congresswoman Nancy Mace, would create a new avenue for declaring a fisheries disaster.