![]() He says there is absolutely a future for seafood on Grand Isle and it’s coming back. ![]() Mauer has been growing caged oysters for the past ten years. Markers of the bottom caged oyster lease of Jules Melancon at sunrise. On Grand Isle caged oysters are grown in floating bags or on the bottom. “ When asked, I just tell everybody I’m out,” he said. A new park, across from the Louisiana Department and Wildlife and Fisheries facility, has eight leases five of them belonging to GoFish. He admits to growing oysters again, but isn’t telling anybody because of the high demand. Mauer and two others grow oysters in the older one located near the bridge. Grande Isle currently has two off-bottom oyster parks. Seven months after Ida made landfall he admits he is still cleaning up from the storm. “I didn’t have a tremendous amount of cages out before Ida hit, only about two hundred because eight months earlier Hurricane Zeta wiped me out,” he told Gulf Seafood News His responsibility during the storm was keeping the generator going on his brood stock and larvae. The Louisiana Oyster Company has been an effort to provide a reliable source for seed oysters.ĭuring Hurricane Ida, Mauer evacuated to the hatchery at Baton Rouge where his business partner Steve Pollock produces the seed. Reliable oyster seed production has been holding back not only the Gulf oyster aquaculture business, but also the East and West coast. Reliable oyster seed production has been holding back not only the Gulf oyster aquaculture business, but also the East and West coast. Baby oysters in a sieve. “We had orders for all those seeds and we had enough seed to fill all the orders.” Mauer said that the $400,000 loss wiped out any chance for profit, as well as set back caged-oyster growers in the Gulf depending on the seed. It got hot and we lost most of those seeds.” “But the storm knocked out the natural gas feeding the hatchery generator. “As long as it stayed cool they would have been good,” he said sitting at his desk at his camp. The two oyster seed entrepreneurs were also allowed to store seed at LSU’s Sea Grant’s hatchery. I figured if I took this to a university that it was my ‘Ace In the Hole’, boy that didn’t work out. “I evacuated ten million of our larva to Texas A&M-Coprus Christi. I was trying to get shipments out and protect what we had at the hatchery in Baton Rouge,” said the oysterman who has focused his attention on seed production since Hurricane Zeta wiped out his operations in 2020. “Right before Ida we finally were producing a lot of seed. “I like being here on the island, I’ll live here without power before I’d go to Washington.” Photo: Ed Lallo/Gulf Seafood News That’s not what makes my life happy, he said. In addition, oyster beds form large, complex structures where many aquatic species, such as fish and crabs, hunt for food and hide from predators.“I didn’t get into raising oysters to deal with policy, I’m really good at telling you what we need, but I’m not the guy to go to Washington and argue. This promotes the growth of underwater grasses, such as wild celery, which serve as important habitat for other species. From this point forward, the oysters are self-sustaining, filtering all the nutrients they need directly from the water in their environment.īecause oysters are filter feeders, they help keep the water clean. The tiles or shells that hold the spat are secured to frames or in cages and submerged along an intertidal area or suspended from a long line. ![]() The successful farming of oysters and other shellfish relies upon successful settlement of larvae onto a selected substrate-typically other oyster shells or ceramic tiles-within a hatchery or wild setting. Oysters are frequently cultivated for food and pearls. Once the larvae permanently attach to a surface, they are known as spat. When oysters reproduce, they spawn tiny larvae that freely navigate the water column until they find an appropriate habitat with a structure to settle on. Oysters are a type of shellfish that live in brackish and saltwater bays, estuaries, and tidal creeks.
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |