Wow! For real?? How did I not know that?

That is going to be your reaction to the following list of facts I have compiled about the Gulf Coast. Let me preface this list by saying that yesterday, after a year of meetings and public listening sessions, the Gulf Coast Ecosystem Restoration Task Force released its report! This is basically a 100-page plan for long-term ecosystem and community restoration in the 5 Gulf Coast states. So far I have only gotten a few pages into it, but they have all been super interesting pages! There is a section which details why the Gulf Coast is so important, and there are some really really interesting facts in it!

So, without further ado, here are some cool things you might not have known about the 5 coastal states that I think you should know :)

Did you know...

• In Alabama "in 2009, commercial fishing trips landed 27.8 million pounds of seafood worth over $37 million. Commercial fishing contributes $391 million and over 8,750 jobs to the state’s economy annually."
• "In 2010 tourism was responsible for welcoming more than 82.3 million visitors to Florida, who spent more than $62.7 billion, generating 22 percent of the state’s sales tax revenue and employing nearly 1 million Floridians."
• "More than five million ducks (20 percent of the continental population) winter in Louisiana each year. During the peak spring migration season, nearly 25 million birds arrive in coastal Louisiana each day."
• "Today, more than 30 states depend on coastal Louisiana’s navigation channels for imports and exports. Louisiana’s ports account for 18 percent of all waterborne commerce in the nation. Five of the 15 largest ports in the United States are in Louisiana. The state’s ports handle an estimated 60 percent of grain exports from Midwestern farmers and are a top importer of steel, coffee, rubber, timber and containerized cargo."
• Louisiana "produces up to 90 percent of the nation’s outer continental shelf oil and natural gas. Louisiana is the top producer of oil and natural gas in the nation (including outer continental shelf oil and gas)."
• "Nearly 25 percent of the commercial fish and shellfish in the United States are harvested in Louisiana’s waters. Louisiana is the nation’s top producer of shrimp, oysters, crawfish and blue crabs." AND "Nearly 90 percent of species in the Gulf of Mexico and 98 percent of commercial fish and shellfish depend on Louisiana’s coastal wetlands."
• Pascagoula, Mississippi, "is the home of the largest military shipbuilder in the United States, and the largest private employer in the state, providing approximately 11,000 jobs for residents of the northern Gulf region."
• Also in Mississippi, "NASA’s Stennis Space Center is home to more than 30 federal, state, academic and private organizations and numerous technology-based companies. The center’s staff includes approximately 2,000 oceanographers, scientists and support staff with a unique capability to study the Gulf Coast from space and in the field."
• "Eighty-two percent of shrimp in the United States come from the Gulf States, with Texas supplying 89.7 million pounds per year. The annual oyster harvest is approximately 5.7 million pounds of meat worth over $19 million."

Okay, so maybe that was more of a textbook-style blog post than I intended, but I still think it is super interesting to realize that so many resources come from this area! Consider this: "The five U.S. Gulf Coast states, if considered an individual country, would rank 7th in global gross domestic product." That is just crazy!!

Oh by the way, all these quotes are taken directly from the report, which, if you are interested, can be found here!

Also, maybe a picture will help liven this post up.

Blue crabs!!