Mussels replace oysters on Stewart Is
Stewart Island oyster farmers were on the cusp of developing year-round supply for the market when the industry collapsed after the discovery of the oyster parasite Bonamia ostreae.
A year on from the discovery of the parasite, questions as to how it had suddenly shown up in the waters of Big Glory Bay remain unanswered and the industry is still reeling from the impact of ostreae.
Based on the estimates from some of the companies the farmed oysters were set to eclipse the amount of oysters harvested from the wild fishery.
Bluff Oyster Company general manager Rodney Clark has previously stated he lost 19.7 million oysters during the removal operation.
Eade, Ericson and Cave Ltd had more than 4 millions oysters destroyed.
By comparison, the wild bluff oyster industry only harvested 10 million oysters from Foveaux Strait each season as part of its self-imposed catch limit.
A year on, most of the companies are rebuilding their marine farms to produce mussels, but they will only be ready for market in three years at a minimum.
Former chief operations officer at Sanford, Greg Johansson said development of the farmed oyster had taken quite a few years but the venture was having a real success with increasing the volume of oysters grown.
Johansson, who is now an independent consultant, said Sanford had been developing an oyster product for the market in a joint venture with seafood company Tio in about 2010.
‘‘We were on the brink of going into some significant volumes, which meant we could have supplied restaurants on a year-round basis with both farmed oysters and wild oysters.’’
The company was only now catching up to date on work that was postponed when the oyster disease hit.
Sanford mussel farm manager Rebecca Diaz-Parry said there was some sense of normality restored a year on, but things would never be the same.
The company had fallen four months behind in its work after staff and boats assisted with the oyster removal operations and had only now caught up to date, Diaz-Parry said.
Restrictions remained in place for ships that handled mussels and the movement of mussel spat, but the extra work had become part and parcel of the job, she said.
Stewart Island Community Board chair Jon Spraggon believes the community has moved on from the devastating loss to one of the island’s main industries.
The community was very positive now because they have had a bumper tourist season, Spraggon said.
With Oban heaving with tourists and a shortage of workers on the island, there was little time for people to dwell on Bonamia.
‘‘It was on the cusp of booming,’’ Spraggon said. The end of oyster farming meant the loss of two or three families on the island, he said.
‘‘That affects the school, it affects everything.’’ Yet, the community is still without answers about the disease, pri- marily how it specifically came to the region. In May 2017, the Ministry for Primary Industries said it had confirmed the detection of the oyster disease Bonamia ostreae in two oyster farms in Big Glory Bay on Stewart Island.
The Ministry made the decision to remove all the farmed oysters in an attempt to prevent the spread of the parasite, causing up to 90 percent mortality in oyster populations, to the wild oyster fishery in Foveaux Strait.
Ministry for Primary Industries incident controller Nicky Fitzgibbon said the latest round of testing was carried out during March and April and the parasite had not been detected.
The ministry had increased the frequency of ongoing monitoring to pick up any new infections as early as possible.
The next round of testing is scheduled for June and July.
To date, three compensation applications have received a total of about $430,000, Fitzgibbon said.
Another 21 applications are in the process of being assessed.