"Climate change is making things worse. "
"The tart saltwater odor of fresh-caught shrimp hangs thick in the air, stronger even than the earthier scent of marsh and mud, at Bubba Gumbo’s and BG Seafood, a dockside restaurant and seafood market on Tybee Island, Georgia. This is one of many restaurants that dot the creeks and rivers snaking like veins through the coastal Georgia marshes. They run the gamut from the upscale and trendy to more bare-bones joints like this one, adjacent to a working dock.
These establishments serve all kinds of seafood, but shrimp is the main attraction. You can order them steamed, fried, or blackened, on top of a salad or sandwiched in a po’boy, or swimming in gravy and grits. Or you can dive into the local delicacy: low country boil, a mélange of shrimp, sausage, corn, and potatoes, spiced and steamed and served in a succulent heap best eaten with two hands and a huge appetite.
Shrimp are abundant in the ocean off Georgia’s coast, because the same network of creeks and rivers that houses the docks and restaurants serves as an ideal nursery for baby shrimp. And for a long time, those shrimp fed not just hungry diners but a thriving industry of boats to catch them, docks to serve the boats, and packing houses to process and distribute the shrimp — and all the people those businesses employ.
But that’s not the case anymore."
Emily Jones reports for Grist May 13, 2025, in partnership with WABE.
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