Oyster harvesting has returned to Apalachicola Bay for the first time in 5 years. The bay was given time to recover from a fishery disaster.
Now, the state has limited the number of licenses to harvest the wild oysters there for a short season.
WFSU News Director Regan McCarthy and WFSU Ecology Blog's Rob Diaz De Villegas made the trip to the coast last month and even hopped on a boat with an oysterman. The return of oyster harvesting in Apalachicola Bay is the topic on today’s Speaking Of.
The short season opened January 1 and ends February 28. The next season will be longer, running from October 1 through February 28.
Oysters are being harvested in a small section of Apalachicola Bay, and other limits apply.
"This is the most oysters I've seen out here in a long, long time. The last time oysters were this thick was probably 1980," says Roger Mathis. He says he's been oystering since he was 6 years old. He's now 68.
"This is what I've done for a living all my life besides drive a truck," Mathis says. "I love this."
Mathis received 31 tickets, each allowing the harvest of one 60-pound bag of oysters. He says one bag brings $65. "When I started catching them, they were $1.50 for a bag."
Mathis says when the short season ends, he'll go back to handyman work until he can harvest oysters again.
Blame droughts, overuse of water upstream, and even the 2010 oil spill for the collapse of the fishery.
"When a system collapses like this, it's usually not one thing," says Dr. Sandra Brooke of the FSU Coastal and Marine Laboratory. "It's a culmination, a perfect storm if you will of a number of things that have been developing over time."
Brooke and her fellow researchers are working under a grant called the Apalachicola Bay System Initiative. Their mission is to figure out why the oysters collapsed and develop a management and restoration plan for the oyster reefs and the bay.
"Since the fishery closed, we have seen signs of recovery in some parts of the bay, primarily those places where the restoration efforts used limestone," says Brooke.
She would've preferred more recovery time for the bay oysters but understands that for the community, "it’s important for this fishery to reopen before so long has passed that they reach a point of no return.”
"I think if it's managed properly, then it'll be okay," Brooke says. "But it's very vulnerable right now - the bay that is, the populations of oysters."
Click LISTEN above to hear the full conversation.
