Continuing my report on recent adventures in the South...
Folks in SW Louisiana take their crawfish very seriously. In Breaux Bridge, a crawfish queen is crowned annually at a festival honoring the little fresh water critter. And everywhere you look, there's apt to be a sign advertising boiled crawfish (below). Here in Arizona, conservation officials have declared war on the ubiquitous, invasive crawdad; in Louisiana, they
farm the native crayfish (tho they don't call them by that name.)
That's why the Sson & I stopped by the roadsides several times -- to get pictures of commercial crawfish ponds. The little guys were even in evidence in the ever-present ditch next the highway, as evidenced by those round diggings. The pond below is perhaps six to twelve inches deep, with baited crawfish pots scattered about.
Here's a close up picture of a crawfish trap. And, to answer a question from one of my readers:
following the devastation of Hurricanes Katrina and Rita in 2005, pond-raised crawfish yields in Louisiana are rebounding. In the 2006-07 season, the crawfish harvest in the state totaled 109.2 million pounds of pond-raised crawfish, which were sold for $84.6 million, making pond-raised crawfish the state's most valuable aquaculture crop. About 1.5 million pounds of wild crawfish were harvested, with a value of $1.3 million. Crawfish exports rose, totaling $257 thousand. This according to the
Louisiana State University Agricultural Center.
Comes harvest time, the pond operator sets out in a shallow-draft boat to collect the critters from the pots. The boats have wheels to move easily over land or pond embankments.
A collecting bag that got away.
Folks in SW Louisiana take their crawfish very seriously. In Breaux Bridge, a crawfish queen is crowned annually at a festival honoring the little fresh water critter. And everywhere you look, there's apt to be a sign advertising boiled crawfish (below). Here in Arizona, conservation officials have declared war on the ubiquitous, invasive crawdad; in Louisiana, they farm the native crayfish (tho they don't call them by that name.)
That's why the Sson & I stopped by the roadsides several times -- to get pictures of commercial crawfish ponds. The little guys were even in evidence in the ever-present ditch next the highway, as evidenced by those round diggings. The pond below is perhaps six to twelve inches deep, with baited crawfish pots scattered about.
Here's a close up picture of a crawfish trap. And, to answer a question from one of my readers: following the devastation of Hurricanes Katrina and Rita in 2005, pond-raised crawfish yields in Louisiana are rebounding. In the 2006-07 season, the crawfish harvest in the state totaled 109.2 million pounds of pond-raised crawfish, which were sold for $84.6 million, making pond-raised crawfish the state's most valuable aquaculture crop. About 1.5 million pounds of wild crawfish were harvested, with a value of $1.3 million. Crawfish exports rose, totaling $257 thousand. This according to the Louisiana State University Agricultural Center.
Comes harvest time, the pond operator sets out in a shallow-draft boat to collect the critters from the pots. The boats have wheels to move easily over land or pond embankments.
A collecting bag that got away.
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