BRUNSWICK (MCT) — City Market seafood store owner Frank Owens stood next to a stack of boxes of Georgia-caught shrimp in the walk-in freezer at his dock Friday and wished the stack was higher at the 1508 Glouscter St. business.

“I have some frozen, but not as much as I usually do,” Owens said.

His shortage of Georgia fresh shrimp is the result of what shrimpers are calling one of the worst fall seasons in recent memory.

The paucity of the plump, food-size shrimp customers want prompted the Georgia Department of Natural Resources to close the shrimp season in state-managed waters at 6 p.m. New Year’s Eve. That prompted the Georgia Shrimp Association, a trade group, to petition DNR to ask the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration to declare a fishery disaster in its South Atlantic Ocean area. If that happens, shrimp fishermen may be eligible for financial assistance or lower loan rates.

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