The Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission is moving forward with partially reopening the Apalachicola Bay for wild Oyster harvesting. The plan is a 60-day season as early as January.
The proposed season is the first since officials closed the bay to wild harvesting five years ago following the collapse in the area’s oyster population. During their meeting Thursday, commissioners agreed to move forward with an initial open season that would begin on Jan. 1, 2026 and continue through Feb. 28, 2026. After that initial opening, the regular open harvest season would begin on October 1 each year and would continue through the last day of February of the following year.
Wayne Williams is president of the Seafood Work and Waterman’s Association. He’s happy commissioners aren’t going with an opening option that would have allowed just 10 commercial harvesters.
“The bad thing about limited entry is that that's once you open that door, it's hard and impossible to close. We need to be able to continue to get more and more harvesters as those resources get better over time, because it does create a huge network of jobs and a huge economic output. And it's very important to the culture of our community,” he said.
Opponents of the plan worry the opening is coming too soon and that allowing wild harvesting now could lead to a backslide in improvements the bay’s oyster population has made.
The commission’s staff will continue to iron the details with a final vote scheduled for November. The FWC will also announce which reefs will be open for the season before it begins.
