Tag Archives: Mississippi oysters
In Depth: Mississippi Has Invested Millions of Dollars to Save Its Oysters. They’re Disappearing Anyway.
By 2015, it was clear that Mississippi oysters were in crisis. Then-Gov. Phil Bryant convened an oyster council to come up with solutions. “This is the soybean of the sea,” Bryant said at a community gathering in 2015 at which he unveiled the council’s report. “We’re going to make sure everyone enjoys it.” The council set a goal of producing 1 million sacks of oysters a year by 2025. But almost a decade later, that goal is nowhere in sight: In a region that helped pioneer the oyster industry, only 457 sacks were harvested in 2022, none of them from the public reefs that the state had worked to restore. “They’re just wasting money,” said Keath Ladner, a former oyster fisherman whose family was in the seafood business for three generations. “And the fishermen know this.” Video, Photos, >click to read< 09:37
Mississippi Oyster fishermen working once again as reefs re-open
Fresh, Mississippi oysters are available once again now that oyster season re-opened at sunrise Thursday. After being closed since early December, oyster fishermen say they are happy to be working the reefs again. Boats loaded with sacks of fresh oysters arrived at the seafood docks in Pass Christian late Thursday morning. “Definitely happy to be back fishing again,” said fisherman, John Livings. Livings’ boat was among the first to unload its 25 sack limit. Soon, others were waiting in line at the docks. “They didn’t grow as much as we thought they was going to grow. At least we got to go to work and make our limit. So it’s good,” Livings explained. Read the rest here 10:25
Mississippi oysters make a comeback – for a price
The Mississippi oyster industry is bouncing back from a triple whammy — Hurricane Katrina, the BP oil disaster and the Mississippi River flood — and is still a long way from its peak 10 years ago. Just over 78,000 sacks of oysters were harvested in the reporting year that ended June 30, according to Department of Marine Resources. Read more here 08:44