BRUNSWICK — Georgia officials are extending the state’s food shrimp harvest season by 10 days, to Jan. 10.
The state’s chief of marine fisheries, Patrick Geer, says recent surveys show shrimp are at or above normal levels of abundance, and overall are of marketable grades.
The Georgia Department of Natural Resources has extended the season every year since 1978, except for 1983, 1989 and 2000, when severely cold weather in November or December caused water temperatures to drop to lethal levels for white shrimp.
The DNR says the number of working trawlers rose slightly in 2010, although license sales remain down nearly 50 percent from the 1979-2009 average of 605.