Texas oyster season begins with challenges
HOUSTON - As the Texas oyster season begins, with six months of access to public waters, the state’s $3 billion dollar industry is starting with a challenge.
In San Leon, the boats that left the Prestige Oyster marina before sunrise made their return much later than expected.
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While captains had harvested their limit of oysters, on the first day of the season, it took extra work to find them.
"Slightly frustrating," says Prestige Vice-President Raz Halili. "It's usually not a good sign when my guys are taking till noon to come in with the limit."
It's not easy work, on the best of days, as a dredge hauls up oysters from the reefs below the surface. State law requires oysters to be at least three inches long, typically a couple of years old before they can be harvested.
But each season is unique.
This year, Halili says his crews found some reefs with few viable oysters, because of too much fresh-water rain runoff, which is toxic to the shellfish. Some reefs are simply too young to harvest, while others are competing with mussels, for the same space.
"That kind of hinders the ability of a reef to grow and thrive," says Halili. "The oysters are kind of starving for food, so it's a slower producing year than in years past."
All that means tighter supplies and elevated prices, at a time when the delicacy should be cheaper and easier to find.
"I think it's going to be a short, but mentally long season," says Halili.
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While not writing off the oyster season, he does not expect it to be easy. The Texas Department of Parks and Wildlife has closed almost half of the state's 33 oyster harvest areas that it manages. As the season progresses, some of them may become healthy enough for harvest.