[HN Gopher] The Last Oyster Tongers of Apalachicola
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The Last Oyster Tongers of Apalachicola
Author : WuTangCFO
Score : 37 points
Date : 2022-08-15 13:25 UTC (9 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (bittersoutherner.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (bittersoutherner.com)
| ethbr0 wrote:
| > _Oyster tongers work on their own schedule, with no boss,
| getting paid in cash based on their daily harvest. [...] Profits
| are based on market price and how hard you work. There's a cowboy
| romance to the independent industry._
|
| My family oystered on the Chesapeake. Some still do. My childhood
| was spent playing through the ruins of the oyster house we built
| on the point, past its heyday and abandoned by the time I was
| born.
|
| Can attest to how much of a long game it is. You make moves for
| five years in the future, and reap the results of what someone
| did five years ago. And the profits or losses are largely born by
| you: not many oysters subsidies for not harvesting...
|
| And it has always been contentious. Often violent. About what
| you'd expect if your savings account were a sack of money sitting
| next to your mailbox. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oyster_Wars
|
| But it's also a beautiful way of life. The old timers know more
| about the nuances of the coast, contours of the bottom, and tides
| than I'd imagine would fit into a human head.
|
| And, for now, my 97 year old great uncle still takes his skiff
| out and tongs every now and then. (Knock on wood)
|
| And here's encouraging people in the Apalachicola region, or
| those interested from afar, to act for the next decade.
| Apalachicola Riverkeeper and Chattahoochee Riverkeeper are good
| places to start. https://www.charitynavigator.org/ein/593550426
| https://www.charitynavigator.org/ein/582095413
|
| Now that the Florida lawsuit is resolved, hopefully the tristate
| area can get back to negotiating a comprehensive plan in good
| faith.
| a_shovel wrote:
| I've lived most my life in the Apalachicola-Chattahoochee-Flint
| River basin. My Granddad would take us down the Chattahoochee
| River in the summer on his boat toward Apalachicola and we'd swim
| at the beaches and eat at Boss Oyster and climb up and slide down
| a huge sand dune along the bank of the river. It's a shame this
| happened to it.
|
| > _I ask Schoelles why he keeps the journals and what will become
| of them. "Just for the hell of it, really," he says. "They'll
| probably get thrown in the trash when I'm gone."_
|
| That's a pessimistic thing to say, but I can't dispute it or say
| I feel differently. Individuals can do everything they possibly
| can to save an environment -- Not "the environment", a distant
| idea of rain forests and coral reefs, but a _particular_
| environment, one they 've spent their lives in and depend on for
| their livelihood -- and another individual's decision 200 miles
| upstream (or 1,000 miles upstream, or on another continent) can
| undo all their work and more, and there's nothing they can do
| about it.
| brodouevencode wrote:
| I grew up in this area too and have noticed that both the Flint
| and the Hooch have both developed a smell over time. Each
| having their own distinctive smell, but both not smelling like
| what I knew to be a healthy river bed from growing up.
|
| This despite the conservation efforts on particularly the Hooch
| by high society Atlanta money. You don't have to go very far -
| Chattahoochee Hills will do - just to look at the river and see
| and smell how terrible it is. The Chattahoochee National
| Recreation Center is very nice, but it's far enough upstream
| before it goes through the industrial areas of south
| Cobb/Fulton so it hasn't developed "that smell".
|
| The Flint is no better. By the time you get to Albany it's
| almost putrid. The local riverfront society there has Turtle
| Grove Park, which in the small handful of times I've been was
| largely abandoned and taken over by homeless and junkies. Not
| sure which situation caused which, but the locals don't go
| there. Most of it comes from ag pollutants - pesticides,
| fertilizers, etc. There used to be a time where you could stand
| on the Broad Street bridge, drop a hook into the water with a
| chicken liver on it and pull up a mudcat that would feed an
| entire family. There's no way I'd eat anything out of that
| river - not any more.
| alexpotato wrote:
| I recently read the book Big Oyster by Mark Kulansky and it is
| full of interesting history and trivia about oysters and the New
| York City area.
|
| Couple highlights:
|
| - Despite a very poor "nutrient to harvest cost" ratio, humans
| have been eating oysters for thousands of years
|
| - Oyster shells were piled up by Native Americans. These piles
| were never more than a certain distance from the shore (I believe
| something like 60 ft). In addition, the shells at the bottom of
| these piles were usually larger than at the top implying that
| over harvesting led to smaller oysters both then and now
|
| - Despite different sizes, shapes etc all oysters on the eastern
| seaboard of the United States are all the same species
|
| The book is full of great lines too e.g. "New York is not a city
| that plans; it creates situations and then deals with them"
| chucksta wrote:
| I was on a tour in the Chesapeake bay, they said in the 1800s,
| they used to have to break up oyster beds because ships could
| beach on them, now (~10 years ago, hopefully it changed) they
| can't get a single one to grow there.
| ethbr0 wrote:
| Chesapeake oysters are one of the great success stories of
| marine species restoration:
| https://e360.yale.edu/features/a-remarkable-recovery-for-
| the...
|
| Circa ~2005, they began seeding modified oysters that were
| more resistant to the pathogens decimating the natural
| population.
|
| Through a managed reintroduction and harvesting program,
| they've begun to gradually heal the bay and continue to
| expand the footprint of oysters.
|
| Better ecosystems through science, indeed!
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