My family has worked boats off Biloxi for 4 generations. Here’s why coastal conservation is vital.

I’m a tour-boat operator in Biloxi, on the Gulf Coast of Mississippi.

My family has been here for three generations before me as part of the rich seafood and tourism fabric of Biloxi. COVID-19 has hit my business and the businesses that rely on a healthy Mississippi Sound hard — but development, environmental degradation, and especially overfishing have been impacting it for years now.

My Croatian great-uncle was the first from our family to come to Biloxi. He went to work in a local seafood factory in 1900. The processing plant continuously brimmed with shrimp and oysters arriving daily from boats working the fertile Mississippi Sound. Factory workers were in short supply during this period. Because my great-uncle impressed the factory’s owner with how hard he worked, he sent for more of my great-uncle’s family members — including his 16-year-old nephew (my grandfather), Pete Skrmetta.

Pete came down to the Gulf of Mexico through Ellis island in 1903. Being from the Dalmatian Coast on the island of Brac, he was no stranger to the seafood business. Much like the productive fishing industry that sustained the islanders of Southern Croatia for centuries, the Mississippi Gulf Coast was a veritable cornucopia of seafood when he arrived.

Pete and his cousins went right to work in the processing plants and on the shallow draft sailing schooners that harvested shrimp and oysters from the Louisiana marshes and Mississippi Sound. Following World War I, diesel engines became available — and by upgrading the schooners, the fishermen were able to go farther and catch even more shrimp. Some summers, boats landed so much shrimp that the factories couldn’t take them all.

By the early 1920s, Pete had purchased his own diesel-powered vessel and was soon hired by a local hotel owner to haul summer tourists out to a speakeasy and dance hall recently opened on one of the offshore barrier islands. Many hotels were built in Biloxi during this time, and visitors and locals wanted access to beautiful Mississippi islands. Pete started hauling thousands of tourists out to the resort on Ship Island each year. The Skrmetta passenger service officially started in 1926 and has stayed the family business ever since.

I vividly remember spending many summer days and nights swimming and fishing on Ship Island. I would travel out on one of my family’s ferry boats, weaving our way around hundreds of wooden shrimp boats dotting the Mississippi Sound. That time was the stuff of childhood dreams: snorkeling among the seahorses and stingrays, fishing whenever the mood bit me (and always landing a catch!), and eating as much fish and shrimp as I wanted.

But now, things are different. I’ve worked on the Sound since the late sixties and have had a front row seat to the slow destruction of the once-mighty seafood industry of South Mississippi: the filling in of the wetlands to create more land for development; channelization of the Sound to make way for deep draft boats; pollution from poor sewage treatment practices; agricultural runoff from local rivers; and the mismanagement of what once seemed like an endless supply of shrimp in the Sound. These days, a family can barely make a living with a small shrimp boat on Mississippi waters. Where there used to be 500 plus boats working the Sound at the opening of shrimp season, now just a few dozen are left.

Ultimately, if there is no locally caught seafood served in Mississippi Coast restaurants, we stand to lose one of the most important reasons for travel to our area. One way to prevent this loss is to establish parts of the Mississippi Sound as a state marine sanctuary. The Intercoastal Waterway sits about six miles offshore, cutting through the islands, and is an important habitat for shrimp and other local fisheries. Making anything north of the Intercoastal Waterway off limits to drag nets and other high impact gear, while continuing to allow crabbing and oyster harvesting, would go a long way towards supporting these sensitive habitats and the fisheries that rely on them.

We should also revisit fishing laws and promote more sustainable fishing practices, such as establishing science-based sustainable catch limits for all managed species targeted in the Sound.

It’s been over 100 years since my grandfather made a life for all of us here. I have spent my entire life on the water — first as a deckhand for my father, and then as Captain. I’ve observed many changes, all to the detriment of the health of the Sound. It is time to bring Mississippi into the modern age of ocean conservation and fisheries management before it’s too late. Before there is nothing left to catch, or beautiful waterways to experience.

Louis Skrmetta is chief operating officer for Ship Island Excursions, a tour boat company.