NARRAGANSETT — The 2016 harvest from Rhode Island’s oyster farms was down slightly from the previous year, according to the annual shellfish farming report released by the Coastal Resources Management Council. The culprit is an algal bloom known as rust tide.
Although nearly 454,000 fewer oysters were sold than in 2015, oysters are still the best-selling aquaculture product, with 7.8 million sold. Rhode Island’s aquaculture industry as a whole continued to grow in 2016, with nine new farms in production. The industry now accounts for 177 employees. The total value of all farmed seafood, including kelp and oyster seed, was $5.5 million.
Rust tide appears in local waters every summer, but last summer’s bloom was particularly widespread. Not to be confused with red tide, rust tide, which is caused by a bloom of the phytoplankton Cochlodinium polykrikoides, will kill fish but does not pose a risk to human health. It does, however, affect the growth of farmed oysters.
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