NEW ORLEANS (WVUE) - Wild-caught Gulf shrimp may be a delicacy, but for many of the people who catch them, it no longer pays the bills.

“It’s getting to the point that we are on our knees. It may be worse than that,” said Acy Cooper, president of the Louisiana Shrimp Association.

Cooper, a lifelong shrimper from lower Plaquemines Parish, says shrimping income has been declining since the 1980s — and so has the number of shrimpers. At that time, more than 6,000 licensed shrimpers worked in Louisiana. Today, there are about 1,400.

“We don’t have anybody coming into the industry. So, if we can’t turn things around and get some young recruitment, we’re going to lose this industry, whether we’d like it or not.”

Louisiana’s top agriculture official says the state’s shrimping industry is in c

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