Today is Good Friday, a day that typically means big business for the local seafood industry.
Crawfish prices in the Crawfish App show mudbugs costing around $3.00 a pound locally. Boiled crawfish are going the $4.00 to $5.00 range.
There are fish fry events across the region with loads of catfish.
However, an oil spill five weeks ago off the Terrebonne Parish coast is hurting seafood sales for shrimp, crab and oysters.
"We've all seen some impacts in sales," Louisiana Oyster Task Force Chairman Mitch Jurisich said.
According to Jurisich, people are asking more questions about the quality of the catch that comes from the Louisiana Gulf Coast. He told WWL's Newell Normand that customers' concerns about the oil spill and how it's impacted the recent seafood harvests has led to declining sales.
"When they see an oil spill off the coast of Louisiana, they don't associate it with certain areas," Jurisich said. "They're just looking at the coast of Louisiana."
Jurisich admits that he's heard about crabbers and shrimpers encountering oil while in the Gulf. However, he says many of those reports are anecdotal and have not been reported to the task force or to other authorities.
"That's somebody telling me that. I didn't actually see it. It seems like someone would be reporting that if that were the case," Jurisich said. "Until we get proof of that, I don't like to take somebody saying this because it does scare people about Louisiana seafood, and we don't want to bring that perspective out there."
According to Jurisich, the task force investigates every report of oil interacting with fishermen's catches to ensure that any fish, shrimp, crabs, or oysters that go to market are safe to consume.
"The one thing in the seafood industry we don't want is we don't want to put a product out there that's tainted with something or is harmful," Jurisich said. "We want to be sure that we have safe seafood for the consumers."
Jurisisch says the areas west of Port Fourchon took the brunt of the oil. That, he says, is good news for local fishermen and seafood buyers.
"People are getting back confident because our areas are open, so we're selling a few oysters right now without too many questions," Jurisich said.
