Aquaculture and reseeding reefs are replenishing stocks.
The North Carolina sounds once supplied some of the most bountiful harvests of oysters to the nation. Mismanagement and disease decimated the crop, but slowly and surely the harvest is on the way back. Ryan Thibodeau of Carolina Designs tells the story in this blog.
“Are oysters finally making a comeback in North Carolina? The numbers seem to say yes, but there is still a way to go.
At one time, the waters of North Carolina’s sounds were among the most abundant resources anywhere for oysters.
Richard Hakluyt, who described the Roanoke Island Expedition—the Lost Colony—wrote, “And of oyster shells there is plenty enough…for the space of many miles together in length, and two or three miles in breadth, the ground is nothing else, being but half a foot or a foot under water for the most part.“
One hundred and twenty-five years later, as John Lawson was chronicling his North Carolina journey, he noted, “Oysters, great and small, are found almost in every Creek and Gut of Salt-Water, and are very good and well-relish’d.”
Read the rest of this blog at Carolina Designs!