Bridging Texas Shrimpers and Texas Shrimping Policy

Abstract

The Texas shrimping communities of Palacios, Port Isabel, and Port of Brownsville were once Gulf of Mexico shrimping capitals; commercial shrimping in Texas brought in about $363 million in 1986 (adjusted for inflation) and around $371 million in 2019 (NMFS, 2022). However, a decline that began in the 1980s has since continued toward economic stagnation. To understand the influence of policy and regulation on fisheries livelihoods, we used mixed methods research to achieve a richer understanding of this complex problem (Creswell and Plano Clark, 2018).