Oyster farms

This is Beej here – reporting interesting information on oysters. This post was created because I was curious about oysters after seeing this:

Here is what we found out from www.oystersautralia.org.au .They get credit for all the info and pictures- except the oyster farm picture we took from the boardwalk.

We are only going to talk about Australian oysters.

 New South Wales, South Australia and Tasmania produced almost all of the 16.45 million dozen oysters sold in 2007: 

There are two types of oysters that are native to Australia- the Sydney Rock Oysters and Angasi (flat) oysters.

Oysters are bivalves. They eat by filtering algae and stuff, like phytoplankton, from sea water.

Oysters need clear salt water at a specific pH and relatively warm  temp (14-30 Celsius).

Oysters change gender during their life (WHAT??)- females release up to 40 million eggs  and then the male releases over twice that many sperm to fertilize the eggs. Babies –called larvae or spat- settle on rocks and hard places to grow.

Oyster farms then relocate these spat to hatcheries (shown below) and then to the trays and baskets and rafts like the ones we saw from the boardwalk.

Oyster farming seems pretty easy because they don’t have to feed or use chemicals on the oysters. They just separate the oysters by size (this is usually done by machine) and get rid of the bad ones.

There are a few diseases that can harm or kill the oysters- but the diseases don’t affect humans. And sometimes bad weather is a problem for the oysters.

 

I have yet to taste raw oysters, but I think I would like to try them… have you eaten them? What did you think?

The Merimbula Boardwalk

Merimbula has a beautiful boardwalk… it was low tide when we went, thankfully- we didn't have to worry too much about slipping off the edges. J

And since it is the off-season, there were only a few other folks on the boardwalk with us. It was a fun adventure... I wish you hear the mockingbirds.

We had a great time climbing on the driftwood...

And looking at a different type of tree...

And we passed an oyster farm! We are looking forward to researching and learning more about oyster farms!

Finally, as we were leaving, some pelicans were attracted by the catch of a local fisherman.

The pelicans were hilarious and they got very close. It was a little intimidating, but everyone, even the pelicans behaved well.


Join us at the beach soon….