Saving Seafood

LOUISIANA: US FDA issues recall of Louisiana oysters due to norovirus illnesses

February 7, 2025 — The U.S. Food and Drug Administration is warning retailers and restaurants not to sell certain oysters that could be contaminated with norovirus after 15 people became ill in Louisiana, U.S.A.

On 5 February, the Louisiana Department of Health (LDH) closed an oyster shellfish harvesting area in Area 3 and ordered a recall of all oysters harvested from that area since 10 January 2025. Fifteen people became ill with a norovirus-like illness after eating oysters from Area 3 across several New Orleans, Louisiana, restaurants between 15 and 31 January, the LDH said.

Read the full article at SeafoodSource

MARYLAND: Maryland selects locations for three new oyster-restoration sanctuaries

October 31, 2024 — The Maryland Department of Natural Resources (DNR) will create three new oyster-restoration sanctuaries, continuing the work of the department to restore the historic oyster beds of Chesapeake Bay.

The sites, in Herring Bay, the Nanticoke River, and Hoopers Straight, will build on the success of previous efforts to rebuild the Chesapeake’s oyster population, which once sustained one of the most valuable fisheries in the bay but has since reached historic lows due to decades of overfishing, pollution, and disease.

Read the full article at SeafoodSource

MASSACHUSETTS: A Five-Year Feud Over Oyster Farms Divides Two New England Towns

July 31, 2024 — Cohasset and Scituate were friendly for more than 250 years. Now, the Massachusetts neighbors can’t find common ground. The reason: oysters.

Scituate, a seaside town of fewer than 20,000 people that shares a harbor with the smaller Cohasset, wants to allow oyster farms in its portion of the bay. Cohasset says the farms inhibit swimming and boating.

Political feuds in small-town New England are nothing new. But this one stands out for its stamina—five years and counting—and spite. Five lawsuits have been filed, including one against the Massachusetts attorney general. More than 30 boat moorings have been seized. And a proposed joint sewer system that advocates hoped would stimulate development and clean up waterways? Circling the drain.

Technically the fight is over 3 acres of oyster farms in a more than 250-acre harbor. But for those involved, much more is at stake.

“For Cohasset, it’s about shellfishing. For Scituate, it’s about sovereignty,” said Scituate Town Administrator Jim Boudreau.

“It’s a real failure of government,” Cohasset Select Board member Jack Creighton said of the oyster farms. “We have an opportunity to preserve and protect from privatization and industrialization.”

Read the full story at the Wall Street Journal

ALASKA: Sustainable Pacific Oyster Farming

October 3, 2022 — The following was released by the NOAA:

Alaska’s aquatic farming industry is relatively new—it only became legal in the state in 1988. Since then, the industry has flourished.

Want a meal that’s good for you and good for the planet? Pacific oysters farmed in the United States are a smart seafood choice because they are sustainably grown and harvested under state and federal regulations. Oysters provide environmental benefits by removing excess nutrients and improving water quality. They are low in saturated fat, and excellent sources of omega-3 fatty acids, iron, zinc, and vitamin B12.

Pacific oysters, also called the Japanese oyster, Miyagi oyster, or Pacific cupped oyster, are sustainably farmed in Alaska and the Pacific Northwest. They are the most cultivated species of oyster, originally introduced from Asia to 66 countries. They are the only non-indigenous species allowed to be imported to Alaska for cultivation. Pacific oysters take 18 to 30 months to develop to the market size of 70 to 100 grams (2.5 to 3.5 ounces; shell on) live weight. Pacific oyster growth depends on water temperature and salinity.

Read the full release here

VIRGINIA: Oyster restoration stumbles in Virginia’s Lynnhaven River

September 14, 2022 — Back in the spring, Lynnhaven River Now was celebrating its efforts to rebuild the oyster population in one of the Chesapeake Bay’s most developed watersheds.

Undertaking the largest restoration project in its 20-year history, the nonprofit group started by spreading 190 barge-loads of crushed, recycled concrete across the bottom of Pleasure House Creek, one of the Lynnhaven’s tributaries.

The Chesapeake Bay Foundation, the Lynnhaven group’s partner on the project, followed up by topping the underwater ridges with a thin layer of shells bearing fingernail-size baby oysters.

“New reefs could support 10 million oysters!” Lynnhaven River Now enthused in an April press release. In all, the two groups planned to create nearly 14 acres of oyster habitat in three separate reefs.

But then waterfront residents began complaining about seeing chunks of asphalt, metal wires and steel rebar mixed in with the concrete being put in the water. A state senator responded by holding public meetings to air residents’ grievances. He pressed authorities to investigate, and in July the Virginia Marine Resources Commission ordered CBF to completely remove everything put in the Lynnhaven so far this year.

The snafu has tarnished the reputation of the two environmental groups, at least in the eyes of some riverfront residents.

“The public confidence in the people who are supposed to be protecting the resources the most, [in other words] Lynnhaven River Now and Chesapeake Bay Foundation, have taken a hit. That’s a polite way of saying it,” said Charles “Chuck” Mehle, a longtime waterfront resident and former community association president who was among the project’s vocal critics.

It’s also roiled other restoration efforts in the Lynnhaven, which is one of five Bay tributaries in Virginia where the state has pledged to complete large-scale revival of oyster habitat by 2025. Waterfront residents are now criticizing plans by the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers to create more oyster reefs in the river.

Read the full story at the Bay Journal

FDA warns about norovirus-contaminated Canadian oysters in the US

April 5, 2022 — The U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) is warning about raw oysters from Canada involved in a norovirus outbreak that has sickened nearly 300 Canadians.

Potentially contaminated raw oysters harvested in the south and central parts of Baynes Sound, British Columbia, Canada, were distributed to restaurants and retailers in the U.S. states of California, Colorado, Florida, Hawaii, Illinois, Massachusetts, Minnesota, New Jersey, Nevada, New York, Oregon, Texas, and Washington, the FDA said in a press release.

Read the full story at SeafoodSource

Prestige Oysters is the first MSC-certified oyster fishery in the Americas

February 18, 2022 — Prestige Oyster private oyster fishery, based in the U.S. states of Texas and Louisiana, has become the first Marine Stewardship Council-certified oyster fishery in the Americas and the sixth oyster fishery certified globally.

Prestige Oysters is a family-owned fishery based in San Leon, Texas, U.S.A., and considered a wild oyster fishery – a rarity as 95 percent of oysters consumed in restaurants in the U.S. are farm-raised. The certification allows Prestige Oyster products to carry the MSC blue fish label.

Read the full story at SeafoodSource

 

Oyster awareness: Shellfish benefit environment, economy

January 10, 2022 — It may sound too good to be true that one, palm-sized organism could filter water, provide habitat, secure the coastline, and be a delicious, nutritious powerhouse on the plate. But it’s not a gimmick — the oyster does it all.

In North Carolina, a consortium of government, university, business and nonprofit stakeholders are working to restore historically depleted oyster populations in tandem with designing resilient wetlands, building a thriving industry, and preserving an icon of coastal heritage. North Carolina leads the way nationally in its collaborative, multifaceted approach to protecting, restoring, harvesting, and educating people about oysters.

In support of this superhero species, North Carolina Forever is working to spark awareness about oysters and the people behind the nimble and broad effort to bolster them as a catalyst for a resilient future, where people and ecosystems thrive. North Carolina Forever is a bipartisan coalition of North Carolinians — from businesses, agricultural, conservation and environmental organizations — aiming to influence legislation and secure the funding necessary to keep a promise held by the state constitution: “to conserve and protect its lands and waters for the benefit of all its citizenry.”

Read the full story at CoastalReview.org

How the Swinomish Are Reviving a Native Oyster and Protecting Eelgrass in Puget Sound

January 4, 2021 — The light of the October full moon bounced across the surface of Washington’s Similk Bay. Stuart Thomas stood ankle-deep in the ebbing tide, flipping black mesh bags filled with oysters.

He opened a bag and pulled out a handful of small ones, barely an inch across, shucking them quickly in the light of his headlamp. “These are Olympia oysters,” said Thomas, cheerful despite the midnight hour. The only oysters native to the state, they’re finally making a comeback after being driven nearly to extinction more than a century ago by overharvesting, habitat destruction and a commercial preference for introduced species, such as the Pacific oyster.

The flesh inside the Olympia’s shell is only the size of a quarter. It tastes sharp, briny and faintly of stone, more ancient, somehow, than the sweet and creamy Pacific oysters that are the mainstay of Washington’s farmed shellfish industry.

A self-proclaimed genetics nerd, Thomas is charged with reviving the Olympia oyster for the Swinomish Shellfish Company. The Englishman had spent years working in Washington’s commercial shellfish industry before joining the company, which is owned by the Swinomish Indian Tribal Community. Now he operates under a different set of rules, with a unique prime directive: Do not mess with the eelgrass beds.

“It was made clear to me early on that everything we were to do would have to be in line with protecting the environment,” said Thomas.

Less than 40 feet away from him, the eelgrass lay flat and unmoving at the water’s surface. Its stillness belied the importance it holds for the marine ecosystem in this part of the world. The grasses serve as a nursery, feeding ground and resting spot for a dizzying number of species up and down the food chain, from orcas to zooplankton, including virtually all the marine foods that Indigenous communities use.

Read the full story at Civil Eats

Houma Oysterman’s Life Left in Shambles by Hurricane Ida

January 3, 2021 — For more than six hours fifth-generation Houma oysterman Jacob David Hulse, his girlfriend Lindsey Willis and his dog Change huddled in an the oyster shop of friend Kenneth (Keno) Templet struggling to keep the walls and roof from caving as the more than 140-mph winds of Hurricane Ida continuously battered away at the structure.  When the winds started to subside, Hulse thought he had gone through the worse of it.  Like many Louisiana fishermen are finding out, his troubles were only beginning after the storm was finished.

“I feared for my life, I really feared for my life,” Hulse told Gulf Seafood News. “You hear everyone say it sounds like a freight train, well it does.  A freight train that keeps coming and coming and coming, never sure when it ends.”

For the 33-year-old Hulse his four-month continuing nightmare started around three in the afternoon on Sunday, Aug. 29th as the first hurricane force winds started to batter the bunkered down trio.  His 73-year-old mother Gail Hedrick Hulse, with whom he shares his house, had evacuated to Kentwood with his older brother Jason.  The young oysterman had stayed behind to finish boarding his home, as well as securing his boat and truck.

“By the time I had finished it was too late to escape what was coming,” he said.  “I didn’t want to get stuck in traffic trying to evacuate, so my friend Keno told me to come on over to the oyster shop. He was staying to try and save $20,000 worth of oysters he had in the cooler.”

Read the full story at Gulf Seafood News