APALACHICOLA, Fla. —Record rainfall may help the Florida Panhandle's ailing oyster industry recover from several years of wide-reaching droughts.
Florida, South Carolina and parts of Georgia saw near-record rainfall in the last six months of 2012 and throughout 2013, Florida State Climatologist David Zierden tells the Tallahassee Democrat (http://on.tdo.com/1hhE1wx ).
Researchers have blamed the 2012 decline of the oyster population in the Apalachicola Bay on persistent droughts from 2009 through 2012 throughout the Apalachicola-Chattahoochee-Flint basin. Oyster harvest landings declined 60 percent over the last year, resulting in a 44 percent drop in revenue.
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