Diminishing Gulf Oyster Industry Struggles On

Commercial fishing ban doesn't stop New Orleans from throwing oyster festival

15 June 2010

Oyster fisherman Tracy Collins shucks an oyster on Caminada Bay in Louisiana.

It is a nearly cloudless early June morning on Caminada Bay, Louisiana, aboard a boat surrounded by marshlands and pelicans.

Dolphins appear alongside the boat as 72-year-old Wilbert Collins guides the way through the reefs.

Scanning the horizon, there is no apparent oil sheen. All the eye can see is what appears to be clean water and a string of orange booms surrounding the bay that people here hope will keep the oil out.

Collins is a third generation oyster fisherman from Lafourche parish. When he started his business over 50 years ago, there were 16 other oyster companies working on this bayou. Today, he is the only one left.

Wilbert Collins, 72, is a third generation oyster fisherman.

"Bayou Lafourche was big for oyster boats," he recalls. "When the steam seasons started after Christmas we had four, five, six boats passing this bayou every day loaded down with oysters to go to the steam factory. Today not one. Not one of them."

Edged out

There are a number of reasons why the state's oyster industry was declining long before the Deep Horizon well exploded in April.

Supply canals dug by the oil companies carved away land that was home to many oyster beds.