As the fall Louisiana shrimp season officially ends Wednesday (Jan. 28), recently released federal fisheries estimates show the 2014 shrimp catch was the second-highest harvest in the state since 2007.

Louisiana shrimpers caught about 57.4 million pounds of shrimp in 2014 compared to the prior seven-year average of about 53 million pounds, according to the federal estimates, analyzed recently by the Southern Shrimp Alliance. The highest annual catch since 2007 was in 2013, when shrimpers brought in about 57.7 million pounds.

Just for December, local shrimpers caught about 3.7 million pounds, the third highest total recorded for the month for the last nine years, according to the alliance analysis. Still, the annual 2014 shrimp catch in Louisiana was about 4 percent less than the state's 10-year average of about 60 million pounds, according to federal estimates.

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