LDWF meeting to talk about Big Lake Oysters

[MathGeek]

It looks like LDWF is recommending to the Oyster Task Force and the LWF Commission that oystering be open in West Cove next season starting Oct 27, 2014 (including dredging), but limited to 10 sacks of oysters per vessel per day. That's quite a bit lower than the 25 sacks per day set by the legislature for the maximum in Calcasieu Lake and the 50 sacks per day limit in the other open areas of the state.

Short of a complete ban on dredging, this may be about the best outcome that could be hoped for at the present time. Depending on the market price, spending the fuel and time to go out for 10 sacks of oysters may not be attractive enough to many harvesters.

I'm re-reading a paper right now that discusses all the valuable ecosystem services that are lost when valuable oyster reef habitat is destroyed. http://life.bio.sunysb.edu/marinebio..._grabowski.pdf

I think this is a great way to communicate our concerns to other anglers, to state policy makers, and to CCA-types in terms of maintaining habitat and valuable ecosystem services.

[Duck Butter]

Originally Posted by MathGeek

It looks like LDWF is recommending to the Oyster Task Force and the LWF Commission that oystering be open in West Cove next season starting Oct 27, 2014 (including dredging), but limited to 10 sacks of oysters per vessel per day. That's quite a bit lower than the 25 sacks per day set by the legislature for the maximum in Calcasieu Lake and the 50 sacks per day limit in the other open areas of the state.

Short of a complete ban on dredging, this may be about the best outcome that could be hoped for at the present time. Depending on the market price, spending the fuel and time to go out for 10 sacks of oysters may not be attractive enough to many harvesters.

I'm re-reading a paper right now that discusses all the valuable ecosystem services that are lost when valuable oyster reef habitat is destroyed. http://life.bio.sunysb.edu/marinebio..._grabowski.pdf

I think this is a great way to communicate our concerns to other anglers, to state policy makers, and to CCA-types in terms of maintaining habitat and valuable ecosystem services.

Agree with all that ^^^^

Oysters do a world of good but hypoxia (dead zones) and oysters are not correlated (you will see that its not mentioned in the the graph you presented also). There have been studies in Chesapeake Bay with hypoxia and oysters and the consensus is that oysters are great and all but definitely not a magic bullet. Oysters essentially can't operate in hypoxic conditions and shut down until the conditions pass (no filtering taking place)

Interesting on the greenhouse gases mentioned in the slide also. May also want to read some of N. Rabalais papers on hypoxia and mentions of climate change caused by humans

http://www.tos.org/oceanography/arch..._rabalais.html

CLIMATE CHANGE WILL
LIKELY WORSEN LOW OXYGEN
I N COASTAL WATERS
The world’s climate has changed because of human activities, and it will continue to change even if greenhouse gas emissions are stabilized because of lagging impacts that will last for centuries

[jchief]

Originally Posted by MathGeek

It looks like LDWF is recommending to the Oyster Task Force and the LWF Commission that oystering be open in West Cove next season starting Oct 27, 2014 (including dredging), but limited to 10 sacks of oysters per vessel per day. That's quite a bit lower than the 25 sacks per day set by the legislature for the maximum in Calcasieu Lake and the 50 sacks per day limit in the other open areas of the state. Pretty sure that is what it was last year also.

Short of a complete ban on dredging, this may be about the best outcome that could be hoped for at the present time. Depending on the market price, spending the fuel and time to go out for 10 sacks of oysters may not be attractive enough to many harvesters.

I'm re-reading a paper right now that discusses all the valuable ecosystem services that are lost when valuable oyster reef habitat is destroyed. http://life.bio.sunysb.edu/marinebio..._grabowski.pdf

I think this is a great way to communicate our concerns to other anglers, to state policy makers, and to CCA-types in terms of maintaining habitat and valuable ecosystem services.

.