Jersey Shore Oyster Industry Is Starting to Recover
SEAFOODNEWS.COM [Philadelphia Inquirer] By Jacqueline L. Urgo - June 29, 2015 -
CAPE MAY - Lying 50 yards off the shore of a remote cove along a stretch of mud flats on the Delaware Bay - where prehistoric man once cultivated oysters with a kind of primitive aquaculture - modern-day researchers and aqua-farmers have been working hand in hand for more than a decade to seed and grow New Jersey's beleaguered oyster industry.
And the results are paying off in a farm-to-table Cinderella story that has taken oysters out of the depths of blight- and disease-decimated shellfish populations, through the thorny trial and error of scientific research, and into a recovery phase that is producing a marketable product fit for gourmands.
Though the numbers still may not be what they were before a blight in the 1950s, when the Delaware Bay alone produced more than a million bushels a year of oysters, things are definitely looking better.
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