After drought, La. short on crawfish

Farmers and scientists say last summer’s record-setting drought delivered a blow directly to Louisiana’s soul in a way that hurricanes or other extreme weather never have: It has come perilously close to ruining crawfish season.

Across the state, farmers have reported harvests as dire, even as they have shouldered the enormous cost of pumping in water for their dry ponds.

Crawfish prices have skyrocketed, reaching earlier in the season close to double what they were last year. Boiled crawfish, practically a staple in Louisiana, has felt more like a luxury. Last month, Governor Jeff Landry even issued a disaster declaration, saying the industry “needs all the support it can get right now.”

The resulting turbulence and heartache reflect how crawfish figure into just about every facet of Louisiana: the economy, the culture, even blood pressure levels. (Veterans of crawfish consumption know to take off their rings as the sodium levels from the seasoning can swell their fingers.)

In Acadiana, the constellation of communities surrounding Lafayette that make up the heart of Cajun Louisiana, the smell of boils often wafts through neighborhoods. The odds are decent that any long line on a Friday night will end at a popular boiling spot.

Crawfish are often farmed alongside rice in soupy fields that are drained over the summer for the rice harvest. The crawfish then retreat into the earth to lay their eggs and emerge in the late fall as the ponds are refilled.

Only this past year, many were killed off by the heat.