For local sellers and lovers of fresh oysters, the news is not good.
The Gulf Coast oyster industry is under siege from several directions, including drought, disease and overharvesting. The result has been a scarcity of quality bivalve mollusks of the “eastern oyster” variety (Crassostrea virginica), which is usually what you’re eating when you’re eating Gulf oysters.
Scarcity and quality were issues even before the Texas oyster season was closed on April 30 for six months, an annual occurrence.
Lance Robinson, regional director of the upper coast for the Texas Parks and Wildlife Department’s Coastal Fisheries division, said disease, parasites and predators, exacerbated by drought, have stricken reefs where 90 percent of the state’s oysters are commercially and recreationally harvested — primarily Galveston, Matagorda and San Antonio bays.
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