Interviewer(s): T. McGuire. Houma, LA

Affiliation: University of Arizona

Kerry St. Pé had referred us to Gerald Adkins as one who knew a lot of the commercial fishermen in the area. I had called him several times in September 2001, but his "on-call" job forced him to cancel a couple of appointments: he drives vehicles around to car lots all over the region. He retired in 1997, and rather than return to his native Shreveport, he built a house in a new subdivision behind the shopping mall in Houma. His wife, Jane, a nurse, was home but did not participate in the interview. The interview ranged across a number of topics dealing with W&F data collection and management, environmental changes and fluctuations, local entrepreneurs, and the differing propensities of shrimpers and oystermen to interact with the oil industry. He agreed with an impression I had been formulating: because of the greater degree of variability/volatility in shrimping (i.e., year-to-year changes in catches due to environmental factors), compared to the relatively steady nature of oyster harvests (function largely of how diligently an oysterman cared for his reefs/leases), shrimpers were more aggressive than oystermen in trying to find niches in the oil industry as it developed.