Saving Seafood

LDWF Seeks Public Input on Draft of Louisiana Oyster Management and Rehabilitation Strategic Plan

November 24, 2020 — The following was released by the Louisiana Department of Wildlife and Fisheries:

The Louisiana Department of Wildlife and Fisheries (LDWF) is seeking public comment from all coastal stakeholders regarding its draft “Louisiana Oyster Management and Rehabilitation Strategic Plan.”

The LDWF Office of Fisheries is responsible for the protection, conservation and replenishment of Louisiana’s renewable, aquatic natural resources, including Louisiana oysters.  In the wake of Louisiana’s recent man-made and natural disasters, this crucial task has never been as important as it is today.

The 2019 oyster stock assessment indicates that Louisiana is experiencing the lowest stock size in the public oyster areas ever recorded, according to the Strategic Plan draft. The decline, according to the draft, is not a result of any single event, but reflects the effects of a myriad of population stressors. Those include changes in hydrology, extreme weather events, the Deepwater Horizon oil spill/response activities, harvest pressure, and most notably, the 2018-2019 Mississippi River flooding event.

“This plan contains initiatives that have the potential to assist in the oyster rehabilitation process,” said Patrick Banks, LDWF Assistant Secretary for Fisheries. “It can increase the productivity and viability of the public oyster areas in Louisiana, aid the oyster industry in adjusting to a changing coast, and allow the industry to be sustainable into the future.”

Gov. John Bel Edwards’ office directed LDWF to begin developing the plan in 2019. The Louisiana Legislature further instructed LDWF through the passage of Senate Concurrent Resolution 56 during the 2020 legislative session.

Members of the Louisiana Oyster Task Force, the Coastal Protection and Restoration Authority (CPRA), and the Governor’s Office of Coastal Activities assisted in the development of the plan draft. Additionally, CPRA committed significant funding to help LDWF implement initiatives in the plan.

“CPRA is proud to be a part of this strategic plan to assist the oyster industry and the oyster resource itself,” said CPRA Executive Director Bren Haase. “This is an important part of our central mission, the implementation of projects that benefit our coastal habitats as well as our working coast.”

According to the draft, it will cost approximately $132.3 million to fund all initiatives in the plan, which will take an estimated five years, at a minimum, to implement.

The 17-page plan is available at: https://www.wlf.louisiana.gov/assets/Resources/Publications/Oyster/Oyster-Strategic-Plan—Public-Notice-Draft.pdf

LDWF will assemble and consider comments submitted by December 4, 2020, and will finalize the plan document for submission to the Governor’s Office and the Legislature later this year.   Comments can be submitted via email to Carolina Bourque, LDWF Oyster Program Manager, at cbourque@wlf.la.gov or by regular mail to Carolina Bourque, P.O. Box 98000, Baton Rouge, LA 70898.

MASSACHUSETTS: ‘It’s just depressing’: As the pandemic worsens, oystermen struggle to remain afloat

November 23, 2020 — After raking up the last of the overgrown oysters and heaving them onto his small barge, Bruce Silverbrand puttered a mile or so to a shallow bend in Buttermilk Bay, where his daughter dumped the shellfish onto a growing reef of brackish discards.

Forsaking such a valuable delicacy would be unthinkable in normal times, but with environmental advocacy groups buying nearly a quarter of his annual crop to help reconstruct vital coastal reefs, the burly oysterman was happy to unload them, even at a reduced price.

The pandemic has hurt many businesses since March, but it has been particularly painful for the oyster industry. Unlike other seafood harvesters that have managed to sustain their businesses through the pandemic by selling to supermarkets, large institutions, and in some cases directly to consumers, nearly all oysters are sold at restaurants.

“Everybody is suffering through this,” said Silverbrand, who grows 450,000 oysters a year. “We’re trying our best to limp through this and come out on the other side. Some of us will make it; some of us won’t.”

Between March and October, sales from the state’s oyster growers plummeted by 50 percent compared with the same period last year, according to the state Division of Marine Fisheries. Compared with the previous five years, oyster sales have declined 43 percent.

Read the full story at The Boston Globe

For the first time, Virginia is setting aside capital funds to restore its oyster population

November 23, 2020 — Virginia is setting $10 million in new funding for oyster restoration in the Chesapeake Bay, focusing on the Piankatank, Great Wicomico and York Rivers.

It marks the first time the state is using capital funds, usually reserved for building state facilities and roads, to restore natural resources.

Bringing oyster populations back has been a top priority because the shellfish play a key role in cleaning the bay. Oyster reefs also protect shorelines from erosion and are habitats for crabs and fish, and oysters are an important commercial fishery.

The state’s stepped up efforts with the signing of the Chesapeake Bay Watershed Agreement in 2014 have restored 240.5 acres of oyster habitat, on top of the earlier restoration of 473 acres. The agreements set a goal of restoring oyster populations in 10 Bay tributaries by 2025.

Read the full story at The Baltimore Sun

Experts worry coronavirus will cut oyster demand in Maryland

November 2, 2020 — Sitting outside Mama’s on the Half Shell restaurant in Canton, Alisha Gladfelter painted the newly christened Shuck Shack, an outdoor oyster bar complete with a grill fashioned from a keg. The swirl of a mermaid’s tail — part of the restaurant’s logo — flowed from the tip of her paintbrush.

Mama’s Shuck Shack is a sign of the times, as much as homemade face masks and ubiquitous bottles of hand sanitizer, an effort to encourage passersby to try one of the succulent bivalves or a dozen, either roasted or raw.

Maryland’s wild oyster season started in October, yet restaurants, watermen and others worry the coronavirus pandemic will stifle demand for the bay’s briny bounty. With few people dining out at restaurants and colder weather limiting outdoor dining, some in the seafood industry worry customers won’t venture out for oysters on the half shell and po’ boys.

Read the full story at The Washington Post

Nature Conservancy purchasing millions of surplus oysters to offset COVID-19 losses

October 21, 2020 — The Nature Conservancy announced 21 October it plans to help struggling oyster farmers impacted by the COVID-19 pandemic by purchasing five million surplus oysters.

The oysters, according to a release from The Nature Conservancy, will be used in nearby oyster restoration projects in order to rebuild 27 acres of “imperiled native shellfish reefs.” Partnering on the initiative are The Pew Charitable Trusts, and the action is being coordinated with efforts taken by NOAA and the U.S. Department of Agriculture.

Read the full story at Seafood Source

As Maryland’s wild oyster season starts, experts worry coronavirus fears may reduce demand

October 19, 2020 — Sitting outside Mama’s on the Half Shell restaurant in Canton, Alisha Gladfelter painted the newly christened “Shuck Shack,” an outdoor oyster bar complete with a grill fashioned from a keg. The swirl of a mermaid’s tail — part of the restaurant’s logo — flowed from the tip of her paintbrush.

Mama’s Shuck Shack is a sign of the times, as much as homemade face masks and ubiquitous bottles of hand sanitizer, an effort to encourage passersby to try one of the succulent bivalves or a dozen, either roasted or raw.

Maryland’s wild oyster season starts in October, but restaurants, watermen and others worry the coronavirus pandemic will stifle demand for the bay’s briny bounty. With few people dining out at restaurants and colder weather limiting outdoor dining, some in the seafood industry worry customers won’t venture out for oysters on the half shell and po’boys.

Throughout Maryland’s summer crab season, demand for the crustaceans remained fairly steady, even with crab houses and seafood restaurants closed or otherwise limited by the pandemic. True to form, Marylanders stuck by their crabs, picking up carryout bushels for smaller home-based feasts.

But carryout oysters? Remains to be seen.

“Most people don’t know how to shuck oysters without cutting themselves up real bad,” said Robert T. Brown, president of the Maryland Watermen’s Association.

Read the full story at The Baltimore Sun

NORTH CAROLINA: Rebekah Williams is a pearl in the Carteret County oyster farming industry

October 19, 2020 — Rebekah Williams has vivid memories clamming and gathering oysters with her grandfather on his 10-acre oyster farm.

Her early childhood dream was to become an oyster farmer just like grandpa.

Williams has always loved being on the water, but children have a way of growing up and moving on to other things. After college, Williams came home for the summer and began working at Sammy’s, a local restaurant. Soon, Williams learned that Sammy Boyd had an oyster farm. He also grew up in the fishing industry.

When Williams shared her childhood dream with Boyd of starting a business of farming oysters, Boyd highly encouraged her.

In 2016, she officially obtained a lease from the State of North Carolina and in 2017 began buying “seed oysters.” Seed oysters are tiny oysters as small as 1 millimeter that are raised from larval oysters.

Read the full story at Carolina Coast Online

MASSACHUSETTS: Shortage Of Oysters And Quahogs Expected In The Next Few Years

October 16, 2020 — The number of quahogs and oysters in Falmouth waters will drop precipitously in upcoming years as a result of the pandemic and a lack of manpower needed to manage the shellfish.

The normal 2020 shellfish growing efforts by the Falmouth Marine and Environmental Services department was canceled as the town took social distancing precautions. R. Charles Martinsen III, deputy director of Falmouth’s MES department, estimates there will be a loss of 750,000 to 1 million oysters and a couple million fewer quahogs in years to come.

“We will start to see the loss on recreational oysters in the fall of 2021,” Mr. Martinsen said, based on the animals’ growth cycle. Future recreational oyster propagation will continue as planned in the 2021 growing year.

“Quahogs take an extra year to grow, so that loss is expected for 2022 in both the commercial and recreational shellfishing area. The harvestable oysters were grown last year, and harvestable quahogs were propagated two to three years ago,” he said.

The legal minimum size for oysters is 3 inches in length. The legal minimum harvest size for quahogs is a 1-inch thickness at the hinge.

Read the full story at The Falmouth Enterprise

Cape Cod’s oyster growers struggle to recover from pandemic losses

October 12, 2020 — When Gov. Charlie Baker shut down restaurants and bars in March, Zack Dixon’s world, and that of hundreds of other shellfish farmers in Barnstable County, dropped off a cliff.

“Restaurants are our customers. When they closed in March, our business revenues went to zero,” said Dixon, who co-owns the Holbrook Oyster company with Justin and Jacob Dalby.

Over the past couple of decades, oysters have become the darling of the culinary world and aquaculture has expanded exponentially. Massachusetts landed nearly 8.7 million pounds of oysters, mostly from aquaculture farming, in 2018, worth $28.3 million. The Cape is home to 265 of the 391 licensed growers in the state, cultivating nearly 661 acres, half the state total of 1,203 acres.

When the East Coast Shellfish Growers Association surveyed larger dealers and wholesalers following the shutdown, they found that 98% of the market for oysters had evaporated overnight, said association president Bob Rheault.

“We knew we were inextricably tied to the food service industry, we didn’t realize how tied in we were,” said Rheault. “I don’t think any one of us would have guessed that amount.”

Read the full story at the Cape Cod Times

Rhode Island Oyster Farmer Leads the Way in Aquaculture

September 25, 2020 — Nearly 20 years ago when Perry Raso leased a 1-acre piece of Potter Pond in South County to farm oysters, aquaculture was in its infancy in the Ocean State.

Raso, then in his early 20s, was only the 15th person to obtain a lease from the state and called himself a stockholder in the pond where he spent part of every day.

Today, the entrepreneurial owner of the Matunuck Oyster Farm and the Matunuck Oyster Bar nurtures 16 million oysters in different stages of growth on 7 acres in the saltwater estuary a stone’s throw from the Atlantic Ocean.

His farm is now one of 70 similar aquaculture operations across the state.

The farmed oysters mature slowly under about 4 feet of water in polyethylene bags that are open to the sea at one end of the pond.

The oysters extract algae from the water that flows through the baskets on the rising and falling tides, said Raso, 39.

He has about 2,000 bags of oysters growing in the pond at any one time. The farm crew tends the operation daily and passes the oysters through a tumbler apparatus frequently to separate them by size in the growing process.

Read the full story at Lancaster Farming