Mullet ( Mugil cephalus ): Fishing, community wellbeing, and resilience in Southeast Louisiana

In this article, I examine the difficulties facing coastal fishing communities in Lower Plaquemines Parish, Louisiana, through the lens of the mullet (Mugil cephalus), a common fish species generally regarded as commercially unimportant. I present participant observation ethnographic data demonstrating that mullet are abundant and frequently captured, that they hold substantial value within diverse fishing communities, and that they could constitute a significant small-scale commercial fishing resource—except that they are subject to stringent state-level commercial restrictions. I show that such regulations lead fishers to forego productive mullet fishing opportunities, which constitutes an outsized opportunity cost for fishing communities and leads fishers to intensify their tactics and target more sensitive species. I discuss the ways in which mullet regulations exemplify the broader constellation of misaligned policies, which tend to ignore the lived experiences of coastal community members, and which add significantly to the stresses of coastal communities already facing enormous environmental, economic, and political headwinds. More broadly, I show ways in fine-grained accounts and explanations of human behavior may contribute to a more effective applied anthropology of climate adaptation and disaster resilience among coastal communities.