DO YOU GET IT NOW?

The New Orleans’ Oyster saloon is now tits up.

You didn’t let the oil gusher under the sea worry you too much. You didn’t lose sleep over the oil plume video feed. You swilled your diet coke while the evening news covered oil slicked and paralyzed birds, crabs feeding in oil glossed and dying marshes and dolphins beached and lifeless. Now; a New Orleans’ institution is putting it into perspective for you:

New Orleans' P&J Oyster Company, the oldest business of its kind in the United States, the oldest continually operating dealer of oysters in the U.S., since 1876, HAS CLOSED THE SHUCKING DOWN.

NPR story on P&J Oyster Company Closing.

Do You Get It Now?

Do you get that in your lifetime, there will be no more gulf oysters for you to suck down? Yeah, they may tell you two 5-10 years, but, wake up. Alaska is STILL suffering toxic effects 21 years later.

Oysters feed on phytoplankton and zooplankton. If the food supply for oysters (shrimp, crabs & fish) are dead and gone or poisoned, the result is NO oysters (shrimp, crabs & fish) for you to eat. And since you probably won’t believe the lingering effects from me, I will cut & paste a quote from Thomas Shirley, a prominent marine biologist:


“Most of the damage remains out of sight below the surface, as creatures succumb to the toxic effects of the rapidly spreading tide of oil.” The oil, coupled with the dispersants designed to break it up, will — at least in the foreseeable future — deal a serious blow to the foundation of this ecosystem: the tiny plants and animals known as phytoplankton and zooplankton." - Thomas Shirley, Scientist

Read Thomas Shirley’s sobering interview.


And for nostalgia sake, here are a couple of oyster facts you didn’t know:


Are oysters male or female?
It is hard to determine the gender of an oyster because unless they are spawning, the sex organs are not visible. All oysters start off life as a male, but they are hermaphroditic and after one year can change to females. Within 3 years, 90% of oysters are female, so you can usually tell the gender of an oyster by the size: small ones are males, and large ones are females. An oyster cannot be male and female at the same time.


How do pearls end up inside of oysters?
An oyster produces a pearl when foreign material becomes trapped inside the shell. The oyster responds to the irritation by producing nacre, a combination of calcium and protein. The nacre coats the foreign material and over time produces a pearl.


My I ♥ brown shrimp t-shirt and my little red envelope containing 5 found pearls are now just symbols of the past, but, who cares, right?