Unified Serenity
1st November 2011, 02:33
Restaurants are reporting they do not have the typical oysters available for their customers now because when each boat should be getting 500 to 1000 pounds per day, they are lucky to get 100 pounds. Now, researchers are investigating as to what the problem might be.
Call me jaded, but my gut says it might be the corexit that was dumped by the millions of gallons, all the oil sitting on the bottom of the gulf, and the destruction of the currents. Here is a story about this problem:
"Dale Rooks says his customers are "crying" for East Bay oysters.
But the large, palm-sized oysters, renowned for their sweetness, are not showing up on his Marina Oyster Barn's menu as the seasonal dish customers expect this time of the year.
"We're finding very few alive," said Pasco Gibson, a main supplier of the East Bay oysters. "This time of the year, we should be catching 500 to 1,000 pounds per boat a day. We're not even catching a hundred pounds."
Oyster season opened on Oct. 1, and oystermen were expecting great hauls. Instead, they were alarmed when they dipped their long, wooden tongs with metal jaws into beds that had been teaming with large, juicy and healthy oysters at the end of last season, on June 30, and pulled up mostly dead ones.
"Something happened in August, and it had to be massive because some of these beds are 10 miles apart," Gibson said of the beds scattered near the shorelines of East Bay.
Depending on what's killing the oysters, once they start growing back, it could take up to three years to grow them large enough to harvest, he said.
To solve the mystery, scientists from the Department of Agriculture's Division of Aquaculture will be in town this week to check on the oyster beds."
You can read it all here (http://www.pnj.com/article/20111030/NEWS01/110300320/East-Bay-oyster-die-off-mystery)
Call me jaded, but my gut says it might be the corexit that was dumped by the millions of gallons, all the oil sitting on the bottom of the gulf, and the destruction of the currents. Here is a story about this problem:
"Dale Rooks says his customers are "crying" for East Bay oysters.
But the large, palm-sized oysters, renowned for their sweetness, are not showing up on his Marina Oyster Barn's menu as the seasonal dish customers expect this time of the year.
"We're finding very few alive," said Pasco Gibson, a main supplier of the East Bay oysters. "This time of the year, we should be catching 500 to 1,000 pounds per boat a day. We're not even catching a hundred pounds."
Oyster season opened on Oct. 1, and oystermen were expecting great hauls. Instead, they were alarmed when they dipped their long, wooden tongs with metal jaws into beds that had been teaming with large, juicy and healthy oysters at the end of last season, on June 30, and pulled up mostly dead ones.
"Something happened in August, and it had to be massive because some of these beds are 10 miles apart," Gibson said of the beds scattered near the shorelines of East Bay.
Depending on what's killing the oysters, once they start growing back, it could take up to three years to grow them large enough to harvest, he said.
To solve the mystery, scientists from the Department of Agriculture's Division of Aquaculture will be in town this week to check on the oyster beds."
You can read it all here (http://www.pnj.com/article/20111030/NEWS01/110300320/East-Bay-oyster-die-off-mystery)