Quote:
Originally Posted by DaPointIsDaBomb
Y'all hands don't know nothing about oystering in the lake in specific areas. They do surveys in the areas beforehand. They don't go to their crystal ball and decide which area to open up. There are also four cultch plants on calcasieu lake
Tong or dredge doesn't matter, the same amount of oysters are coming back to the dock at the end of the season. Dredging gets it over with quicker.
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Is it that you cannot read, that you choose not to, or that you simply deceitfully ignore what you have read?
I wrote:
[Your] statement ignores the plain fact that the ecosystem benefits of oyster reefs are not only related to the biomass of living oysters, but are also strongly related to the physical structure of oyster reefs providing valuable habitat for benthic invertebrates.
Studies have shown that tonging for oysters preserves the reef structure and the habitat benefits nearly as well as not harvesting the oysters at all. In contrast dredging destroys the reefs and results in most of the calcified material getting buried in the muck and mud resulting in a much less dynamic benthic ecosystem. Further, all the silt stirred up negatively impacts light penetration and photosynthesis.
It is much better to think about the ecosystem in terms of the food web. Everything about harvesting with tongs is better for the food web than dredging.