March 9, 2026 — Peter Stein stood on a dock on Peconic Bay and stared at the wreckage. After weeks of being seized in ice off the East End of Long Island, hundreds of his oyster cages were now broken and scattered all over the bay.
A month earlier, the cages were full of oysters that can cost more than $4 apiece at Manhattan restaurants like Balthazar, Gramercy Tavern and Oceana.
But Mr. Stein said that most of his floating farm system — more than 2,000 cages, each holding up to 250 oysters — had been ripped apart by ice that was “by far the worst” he’d seen since he founded Peeko Oysters a decade ago.
The thaw from one of the harshest cold snaps in memory strewed Mr. Stein’s cultivation gear far and wide. Parts of cages, lines and floats were left drifting around the bay, stranded on shorelines and even tangled around the propeller shaft of a Shelter Island ferry.