SAN LEON, Texas A year after Hurricane Ike devastated Galveston Bay’s oyster beds, the oystermen who have been harvesting seafood from the bay’s fertile waters for generations are barely hanging on, and many fear this could be their last oyster season.
The boats that fan out over the bay every morning are harvesting only a third of what they usually do, and some longtime oystermen are thinking of finding a new line of work.
“This year is a lot worse than last year,” said Joe Nelson, who owns Fisherman’s Harvest and has been pulling oysters from the bay for nearly four decades. “It is going to be really tough for us to make it through the season.”
When Hurricane Ike slammed into Galveston on Sept. 13 last year, the storm buried nearly 8,000 acres of oyster reefs in sediment from the Bolivar Peninsula, state wildlife officials said. Half of the oyster habitat was wiped out, destroying the livelihood of more than 100 fishing operations.
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