Tilting her head back, she put each one to her lips, quaffed its juices and savored its flesh with the sound of the surf and the anxious cries of nesting Canada geese in her ears. On our most recent trip, Ruth broke several shells with her club, but was not dismayed. One sharp rap will usually dislodge one bivalve from another. We bring along an 18-inch-long section of a broken shovel handle and a small piece of plywood to serve as an operating table. Ruth goes to work on the first batch I bring to shore and I go forth again, until I estimate that I have enough - after culling - to fill our weekly family limit of one bushel. Because the oysters I harvest are usually in bunches, separating them and discarding those that are dead or too small is part of the ritual. Failing this, they will suffocate in mud or silt. This is because succeeding generations of oyster larva, or spat, need something rough, slime-free and hard on which to anchor themselves.
It is possible to gather oysters by hand, as opposed to dragging a dredge behind a boat, when the water is rough, but it is a lot easier when the water is smooth and they can be seen on the bottom.Īlthough I gather all the single oysters I can, most of them come in clumps. Then, after the pond was opened, there were days on end when strong northerly winds churned up waves against the spot we planned to visit, which is hard against the barrier beach separating the pond from the ocean. When we first thought of oystering in March, the pond was closed and the water too deep for wading. One purpose of the openings is to maintain the proper salinity for the bivalves to grow and reproduce. We harvest oysters on Tisbury Great Pond on Martha's Vineyard Island, Mass., a salt pond that is periodically opened to the ocean with a bulldozer. Inclement weather and other factors can get in the way of an oyster expedition, however, which is why my companion, Ruth Kirchmeier, and I have made only two such sorties thus far this spring. Immobile and visible, they await your depredations. In addition to the project participants, community volunteers have been helping Hill in the oyster nursery located in Carteret County’s Down East region.įor more information about this project, contact Frank López at MORE ON THE WATER NEWS HERE.One of the charms of gathering oysters is that they cannot elude you. Without their hard work, none of this would be possible.” “I’m proud to say the fishermen have really stepped up to make this project a reality. Sea Grant working together on a project that has the potential to produce real economic and ecological benefits to eastern North Carolina,” says Glenn Skinner, executive director of the N.C. “It’s been great to see the fishing industry, N.C. The value of the project also includes the strong collaborations to complete each deployment. “Our complimentary oyster reef-building efforts combine to create important habitat in our estuaries.” “The division approaches shellfish rehabilitation by building strategically placed oyster sanctuaries, which are protected from harvest, and also constructing these open-access ‘cultch planting’ areas to function more like natural reefs,” Boyd explains. “Not only do oysters provide economic benefits as an important fishery, they also provide many ecosystem services such as water filtration, shoreline stabilization, and habitat for different fish and other marine life,” says Jacob Boyd, habitat and enhancement section chief for the N.C. Division of Marine Fisheries representatives and commercial fishermen are collaborating to identify suitable sites, López explains. The project will bring environmental benefits, too. “Helping commercial fishermen recover from Hurricane Florence through boosting North Carolina’s oyster fishery is a great use of some of our hurricane relief funding.” During winter months, wild-harvested oysters provide needed income to support coastal fishing families, while providing tasty, healthy local food to seafood markets,” Hamrick says. “Oysters are an important fishery for North Carolina’s working watermen. Farm Bureau Federation and an advisory board member for Sea Grant, with helping to initiate the collaborative demonstration project. López credits Debbie Hamrick, director of specialty crops for the N.C. The spat grow into adult oysters in this natural setting - and can form dense oyster beds over time.” As the larvae permanently attach to oyster shell in climate-controlled tanks, they are known as ‘spat.’ The spat-on-shell then can be deployed in sounds. “Spat-on-shell culturing allows oysters to be started as larvae in a nursery setting. “Recent storms like Hurricane Florence have impacted wild oyster populations,” says Frank López, extension director for North Carolina Sea Grant.