September 26, 2024 • 40 mins
- Chester Moore talks with Shane Bonnot of the Coastal Conservation Association about the importance of oyster reefs on coastal fisheries.
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Speaker 1 (00:02):
I have sixty klv. I. This is Chester Moore, and
I have a good friend of mine, a guy I've
known for a long time.
Speaker 2 (00:07):
Now.
Speaker 1 (00:07):
I've got Shane Ben Though he's the Coastal Advocacy Director
for cdc A Texas. Shane's probably been this program fifteen
twenty times over the years and various capacities dating back
to when he worked for Texas Parks and Wildlife at
c's Center Texas. But when I need to talk with
someone on the Texas coast about ecosystems, especially oyster, is
(00:28):
always default to Shane because he knows so much about it.
So Shane, welcome to the program.
Speaker 2 (00:36):
Chester, thanks for having me again. And it's always fun.
I look forward to these things, and yeah, I look
forward to the conversation.
Speaker 1 (00:45):
So oysters have been really in the news on if
you're a coastal fisherman. There's been a lot of a
lot of oyster mentions in the last I would say
almost ten years, and various capacities, and really things heated
up after I believe it was Hurricane Harvey came in
and you know there was some damage and stuff to
reefs and things sort of changed. But just before we
(01:07):
get into all that. Let's talk about the oyster itself
and the role it plays in our coastal ecosystems.
Speaker 3 (01:14):
Okay, hey, I'm happy to do that.
Speaker 2 (01:15):
So you know, oysters are a keystone species.
Speaker 3 (01:21):
In our bays.
Speaker 2 (01:22):
The oyster we have in Texas is called the Eastern oyster,
and its range is quite extensive. It's ranges from Mexico
all the way up the Atlantic seaboard and and and
so it's it's.
Speaker 3 (01:41):
Quite a resilient critter.
Speaker 2 (01:43):
And you know, they has a wide variety of salinities
that it can tolerate, a wide variety.
Speaker 3 (01:51):
Of temperatures that it can tolerate.
Speaker 2 (01:54):
But not only is it an animal, it's it's a
habitat uh and it creates. It's an animal that creates
its own habitat for itself, and in the process of
doing so, it is creating habitat for hundreds of other
aquatic species. There's been around three hundred and six different
(02:15):
aquatic species that have been identified that use oysters and
the habitat they create for either a food source or
for refuge or for habitat. So very very important species
in our based systems, and they provide all sorts of
ecological services while they're in the water. The one that
(02:40):
most people are familiar with is their filtration abilities. So
you know, an individual oyster can filter quite a number
of gallons in a day. I think the number is
that you'll commonly hear one oysters fifty gallons per day
worth of filtration. And and so they clean the water, uh,
(03:04):
they remove suspended solids out of out of the water,
they remove algae out of the water, and in the
process they're also removing uh some some some chemicals uh
toxins that may be.
Speaker 3 (03:17):
In the waters as well.
Speaker 2 (03:18):
So they're making our bays healthier by by those providing
those services. When you think about oysters as a group,
we refer to that as a reef, and the oyster
reef itself provides shoreline stabilization. It provides wave attenuation so
(03:39):
that the waves are less and on the back side
of the reef you get more sunlight penetration, which is
beneficial for sea grass. And then and that there are
natural storm barrier.
Speaker 3 (03:53):
You mentioned Hurricane Harvey.
Speaker 2 (03:55):
There's been a number of storms that have impacted the
Texas coast, and when we have these oyster reefs in
place along our shorelines, that is our first line of
defense when we have a storm search coming to the coast.
So very important species to our bays, not only to
the fishes, but also to us as coastal residents, and
(04:17):
they're an important food source for the Texas economy. So
they're often mired in controversy as a result of all
those sort of sometimes competing interests.
Speaker 1 (04:31):
So for a long time, it was like, you know,
if it was a coastal fisheries issue in the news,
it was pretty much some kind of a bag limit
or a size limit that was took the headlines, whether
it's speckled trout, whether it's flound or whatever. But then
things changed and we started hearing a lot more about
oysters and habitat, and if my memory serves me correctly,
(04:54):
a lot of this started happening after the hurricane.
Speaker 2 (04:57):
Yeah, and you know, hurricane is impactful two oysters, just
because of that storm surge that's associated with it and
the amount of sediment these storms can move around, so
you get oyster reefs that can potentially get covered up
from siltation. One of the most impactful ones to the
(05:19):
Texas coast was in two thousand and eight with Hurricane
Ike and it was that one which sort of sent
out alarm bell saying, oh my gosh, we really need
to kind of focus on our oyster fishery and what
it's going to look like into the future. But historically,
(05:41):
most of the commercial oyster harvests had come out of
Galveston Bay, and that all changed after Hurricane Ike, because
you know, we had the vast majority of recent Galveston
Bay were covered over with silt and we lost a
lot of the live oysters as a result of that,
(06:01):
and so the oyster fishery had to shift their focus
further down the coast into some smaller bay systems. So
you started to see the impacts of that fishing pressure
in these smaller areas much more quickly than we had historically.
And so again the alarm bells went off. Okay, we
(06:22):
got to really start trying to find out ways to
manage this fishery and manage that effort a little bit better.
Speaker 3 (06:31):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (06:31):
It's interesting because I live in the Sabine area, of course,
and we have a pretty large oystery from the south
end of the lake at me Skip Point, and that
thing hasn't been harvested since I think there was some
minor harvesting in the sixties maybe, but that I've always
heard it wasn't harvested because of freshwater inflows and things
like that. And I guess what I'm trying to get
(06:54):
at is that maybe all oyster reefs are not created
equal for all purposes. Know that, you know, there may
be reasons you can't eat them for health purposes, but
they still serve as a good fish. Abbitat is that
that amount?
Speaker 2 (07:06):
And yeah, absolutely, And Sabine Lake, you know there has
been pressure to open it up to become harvested, but historically,
as you mentioned, is not in an area that that
gets fished. And and yes, human health concerns are a
(07:27):
part of that calculus. So when you get a lot
of fresh water runoff, which Sabine Lake obviously gets a ton,
you get runoff from the landscape in which so we
you have pecal coliforms and other bacterias that could be
harmful to people that those oysters are by accumulating. So
(07:47):
you don't want people eating those oysters if they're not
safe to eat. So you see that more so in
areas that get a lot of rain rainfall, Sabine Lake
and Galveston. But Sabine gives you a good picture of
what a oyster reef can look like if it's not harvested.
So it's kind of like, you know, we I like
(08:08):
to look at Sabine Lake like a like a study area,
and so we can we can conduct restoration in that lake,
create new oyster reefs in that lake. We can monitor
that deep reef that you mentioned and watch as it
as it handles different environmental conditions without you know, the human.
Speaker 3 (08:28):
Pressure the harvest on top of it. Uh.
Speaker 2 (08:31):
But I've been out in a in a in a
parks and a life boat when they're doing samples off
of that reef and I've you know, I've on on
the on the side scan.
Speaker 3 (08:40):
I've seen the profile of that reef and it.
Speaker 2 (08:44):
Does a five and a half foot six foot jump
from the top of the reef and falls down.
Speaker 3 (08:51):
So it's got a great deal.
Speaker 2 (08:54):
Of vertical vertical relief. Now that may not all be
oyster growth. It's not all live oyster growth, to be sure.
There may be some shoaling going on that's making that
profile bigger than what it actually is. But the point
is is that that shell and that structure is there
and it's serving a purpose. But these things move over
(09:18):
time as they move with the salinity gradient. So if
you go back and look at old maps of Sabine Lake,
the reefs used to be further out.
Speaker 3 (09:28):
They used to be near, you know, right near the pass,
and in.
Speaker 2 (09:32):
Fact, the reefs almost went all the way across the pass,
and you had kind of like a natural dam at
one point in time, until all that was dredged out.
And so as the lake got as the channel's got dredged,
you have salt water going further and further into the lake.
And that's why the reef is where it's at now.
Speaker 1 (09:50):
When we come back on More Outdoors, we'll talk more
with Shamee to Know from the Coastal Conservation Association about
oysters and their impact on fishing and conservation. Welcome back
to More Outdoors on News Talk five sixty klv I.
This is Chester More. You can follow me at the
Chestermore on Instagram, Higher Calling dot net, my blog, and
(10:13):
you can also check out my Golf Great White Sharks
blog at Golf great Whites dot com. Continuing our conversation
with Shane Benow, Coastal Advocacy Director for CCA, Texas. And
that's interesting because a lot of people think, because all
of us have grown up well after channelization happened, that
(10:34):
salinity levels now are what they were one hundred years ago.
But there's a lot of difference, isn't there.
Speaker 3 (10:41):
Oh yeah, there's there's a time.
Speaker 2 (10:42):
I mean, our landscape on the Texas go, it's not
only in Sabine Lake, but all across. You know, the
geographic coastline has has changed. We're we're sticking a bunch
of straws in the ground and sucking up all the
water where you know, we've dammed up most of our rivers.
There's one more river that reaches the coasts that has
(11:05):
not been dammed, but there's actually a permit application in
the works right now to try to put a dam
on that one. That's the Lavaca River. And so, yeah,
we've we've changed the salinity. We've rerouted rivers, yeah, Rasis River,
the Colorado River. So we've changed the you know, the
salinity matrix of our base systems. And as a result
(11:27):
of that, you've seen the habitat change, You've seen seagrass move,
and you've seen the location of oyster reefs change.
Speaker 1 (11:36):
So there have been some changes to the regulated part
of the oyster fishery in the last few years, can
you kind of run us through those.
Speaker 2 (11:45):
Yeah, there's been there's been quite a bit of a movement,
and again it really does go back to Hurricane Ike.
After Hurricane Ike, the Texas Parks and Wallace Department established
the authority to open and close base systems based off
of abundance in their samples that they collect, so that
(12:06):
if all the fishermen had to go to Lavaca Bay,
Parks and Wildlife had the ability to close that bay
once it was fished down to a certain level. So
that was that was That was one big thing that
had happened.
Speaker 3 (12:19):
Since then, there have.
Speaker 2 (12:21):
Been nine small areas, nine small base systems that have
been permanently closed to oyster fishing. Some of them were
closed to serve as as nursery base so kind of
like a seed source for the overall greater based system,
and other ones were closed. The Carlos Mosquiton Airs Bay
(12:44):
complex were closed for their ecological value that they.
Speaker 3 (12:48):
Serve to that area. You have a cedar value.
Speaker 2 (12:52):
A tidle pass moving through that area is very important
to the water quality to the adjacent based systems. San
Antonio and Aurensis based systems. You've got hooping cranes there,
and other important commercial fisheries there like black drum fishery
that rely upon vibrant oyster reefs.
Speaker 3 (13:14):
So those three areas are closed.
Speaker 2 (13:17):
You have a shoreline buffer on the entire Texas coast now,
so nowhere within three hundred feet from a shoreline are
supposed to be harvesting oysters, though most of the shorelines
are all the shorelines are theoretically closed from harvest, and
Parks of Malife has made some adjustments in the percent
(13:39):
of undersized oysters or shell that the oyster fishermen are
allowed to put into their sacks when they're harvesting oysters.
Outside of that, we've had legislative changes. Most of those
have dealt with the penalties that are associated with violation
(14:01):
they've been in. There's an enhanceable aspect now to oyster violations.
Whereas before an oyster fisherman, no matter how many times
he he was keeping undersized oysters or how many times
he was fishing in closed areas, he would just get
a class seed misdemeanor. Now if they if they harvest,
(14:23):
if they have more than thirty percent of their catch
undersized it's immediate enhancement to a Class B. And if
they're a repeat offender for whatever reason undersized or fishing
and closed areas, it's it's enhanceable to Class B. So
the penalties have a little more sting. Rather than just
a one hundred dollars or two hundred dollars fine, they're
(14:46):
looking at potential couple thousand dollars in fines and even
possible state jail time again if they're egregious violators.
Speaker 3 (14:55):
So the fish, the fishing industry.
Speaker 2 (14:58):
Is a little more account than they used to have been,
which which which helps for the sustainability.
Speaker 1 (15:04):
You know what's interesting, Like when it was mainly the
Galveston complex, it's such a big complex and a little
deeper water than the skinnier water down south. I think
when it started moving, they started putting their attention down there.
Speaker 3 (15:18):
It became a lot.
Speaker 1 (15:18):
More visible to the naked eye on what was happening.
I remember going literally a week before the freeze of
twenty one to fish with a friend of mine who
had a little lodge for him and his family on
uh Copon Obey down there, and he's coming in and
watching him walk in, he's just shaking his head. He goes,
(15:40):
I said, what's wrong. Good's gone. They had like a
little one maybe one and a half acre reef outside
of his place, and he'd been gone for a month
and he was told that that He was told by
his friends. They oystered it and he went in there.
He said, it's just completely gone. It's it's wiped out,
you know. So I think some of that made people because,
(16:01):
you know, Shane, there's we've talked about this before. Habitat
in fishing is sometimes hard to drill down to fishermen
because you know, you still have the same amount of water,
you know what I mean. It's like, and it's it's
harder than fisheries issues Like if I put something about
seagrass out, I'll get a certain amount of people comment.
(16:22):
But if I put speckled trout regulations is going to change, boom,
It's like a nuclear bomb went off, you know. And
I think with this oyster thing, it might have been
the first time I saw a lot of eyeballs get
on a habitat issue all along the coast.
Speaker 3 (16:38):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (16:39):
I think we're you know, anglers in general are becoming
more aware of the value of that habitat and as
you as you mentioned, because it's it's more a little
more in your face along the middle and lower coast
than it was just on the upper coast when you're
and you know, the example you gave is the exact
(17:01):
example I've heard dozens of times specific to Coconat and
Ransa Space also East Matagorda Bay. But wade fishermen would
state that reefs that they used to wade at their
knees to their waist are now between their waist and
their chest if they're there at all. And so what
(17:25):
has happened is these reefs that had quite a bit
of vertical relief, not unlike the Sabine Lake Deep reef,
quite a bit of vertical relief. Over time, they've been
dredged and you know, shells been removed and scattered.
Speaker 3 (17:41):
So what you see is a lot of times the
profile of the reef is altered. It changes. It goes
from something that's.
Speaker 2 (17:49):
Quite complex with that vertical relief and different kind of
structural features to something.
Speaker 3 (17:57):
That's more flat and laid out.
Speaker 2 (17:58):
So it's transitioning from the Texas hill country to the
Texas coastal plains. That that's the kind of difference in
the landscape that we're that's happening at the bottom of
our bays as a result of of this sort of
pressure having to migrate further and further down the coast.
(18:19):
So there's I mean, there's some there's some things that
we can continue to do to try to improve the fishery,
but you know, in that process, we just want to
make sure that we conserve and sustain what we've what
we've got, because we don't want to lose our oyster
fishery like some other states have and they're kind of
(18:42):
in the process of trying to rebuild their fishery as
a result of over exploitation.
Speaker 1 (18:48):
Well, I know, Cca, Texas and the Texas Parks and
Wildlife are not out there going you know, we're going
to wage war on the commercial oyster fisherman. This is
about the resource itself. And I know there is some
like positive things that are being like, like you know,
oyster farming, and there's restorations. Let's talk about some of
those things you guys have been involved in or that
(19:09):
you're looking at.
Speaker 2 (19:09):
Yeah, so you know, we've we've sort of we've laid
out I think it was two thousand and twenty or
twenty and twenty one, we and a number of other
groups signed on too. They signed on to our letter
to sort of state our concerns with the oyster fishery
and we want to will it, you know, we want
to willingly work with conservation partners in the industry to
(19:34):
to chart a path forward for the industry and not
rely only on our public reefs to provide oysters to
the market. So, yeah, the number one thing was the
creation of the what's called Texas Cultivated Oyster Mericulture or
ta COOM.
Speaker 1 (19:53):
When we come back on More Outdoors, we'll talk more
with Shane Bano from the Coastal Conservation Association of the
Great State of Texas. Welcome back to More Outdoors on
News Top five sixty KLVI. This is Chester Moore. You
can download the podcast of this program. Go to KLVI
dot com, click on the podcast link. You'll see archives
(20:16):
of More Outdoor dating back several years. Continue our conversation
with Shane Benow, Coastal Advocacy director for CCA.
Speaker 2 (20:24):
And that is what you mentioned, that's oyster farming, and
so oysters are are provided to farmers from a hatchery
and they're about when the farmers get them. They're about
as big as your pinky fingernail, and then they're stocked
into cages and you'll see these cages floating in.
Speaker 3 (20:41):
The water column.
Speaker 2 (20:43):
And then they're grown to market size and sent to
mostly for the half shell market. And so this is
a new industry to Texas and it's growing and it's
going to be one piece.
Speaker 3 (20:56):
Of the future of the oyster fishery in Texas.
Speaker 2 (20:59):
So if you fish in anywhere from Galveston to Corpus,
you may see one of these things look like a
bunch of crab traps floating on the top of the
water column.
Speaker 3 (21:11):
And so there's that's an oyster farm.
Speaker 2 (21:14):
The sizes range from the smallest one I think that's
permitted as two acres. The largest one that's currently permittent
is thirty acres in Aransas Bay, but there's a fifty
acre site under review for Keller Bay, and that one
specifically is made up of a cooperative of commercial oyster
(21:36):
fishermen oyster dredgers that are looking into getting into the
farming piece of this. And then the other sort of
idea that we would like to see move forward is
the expansion of the on bottom lease program. Okay, and
in Texas it's we call it a certificate of location.
Speaker 3 (21:58):
Okay Ingal Bay.
Speaker 2 (22:01):
There are currently about twenty six hundred acres that oyster
fishermen have under certificate a location. And this started, I
believe in the nineteen nineties, and at that time it
was just utilized for the oyster fishermen that applied for
and got these cols or certificate locations, and they were
(22:23):
transplanting oysters from areas where they weren't safe to eat,
in areas that were closed, harvesting them and then moving
them to their certificates of location, and then after they've
filtered and cleaned and deporated, they would then go in
and harvest them for consumption. Well, what's happened with that
program over time is that the oyster commercial oyster companies
(22:47):
that have these cols in Galveston Bay, they've had to
stop transplantings at the direction of the department because they
were removing too much from.
Speaker 3 (22:57):
These closed areas.
Speaker 2 (22:59):
And they started doing is bringing in their own material
river rock could be concrete, rubble could be old oyster.
Speaker 3 (23:07):
Shell, what have you.
Speaker 2 (23:09):
And they plant that substrate on their lease or on
their col and it grows oysters so it is a
and it's it's an it's not necessarily oyster farming. It's
more like oyster ranching, but it is it is a
way to grow.
Speaker 3 (23:26):
To the Texas for oyster. Right, It's a way to grow.
It's just a little less intensive than the merriculture piece.
Speaker 2 (23:33):
It's it's a little more hands off, but it takes
quite a bit of material, quite a bit of infrastructure
when you think about having to move barge loads of
rock out to your lease and dump it off into
the water.
Speaker 1 (23:46):
But it's is there a component of that that you
know ends up benefiting the fishery by creating new habitat.
Speaker 3 (23:53):
Oh absolutely.
Speaker 2 (23:54):
I mean fishermen in Galveston Bay that nowhere these leases
are love to drift fish over them. For speckled trout
is very very productive fishing areas.
Speaker 3 (24:05):
They're creating more oyster reefs, is what they're doing.
Speaker 2 (24:08):
But they have exclusive harvest rights to the oysters on
their lease. So we would like to see that expand
to some degree across the at least in Galveston Bay
and hopefully across the coast into some of these other
major based systems interest because ultimately it's a way to
reduce the pressure on the public reefs and allows the
(24:31):
oyster fishermen more opportunity to get product to market. Right
now or historically, I should say eighty percent of the
harvest in Texas has come from public reefs and twenty
percent has come from these private leases.
Speaker 3 (24:49):
Those numbers should be flipped.
Speaker 2 (24:51):
In my mind, we should use the public reefs as
the safety valve for when the lease system fails for
environmental reasons or whatever. If you have a if you
have a loss in your in your product because of
fresh water inflows or too high salinities and predation from snails,
(25:13):
then you go to the public reefs to still harvest
your product.
Speaker 3 (25:17):
I just feel like we have kind.
Speaker 2 (25:18):
Of the priorities of where the oystermen are taking the
wishes from kind of flipped and hopefully one day we'll
have a more robust lease program for the oyster fishermen
to get into and invest more into.
Speaker 3 (25:32):
That into that resource.
Speaker 2 (25:34):
And when you look at how the public reefs are
treated by the oyster fishermen in contrast to how their
own private leases are treated, you'll then understand why we
need to move to more leases, because.
Speaker 1 (25:50):
Well, it's like going on public hunting versus a lease.
You know, it's a whole different So I think everyone
listening or could probably figure that out. If it's your
own place, you take a little better care of it,
you know, or those kind of things, or you you
you know, maybe there are a few unethical people, you
keep them off the property, you know, and it's public.
(26:10):
Then you know you can't do that. So tell me
about CCA's commitment to this and what CCA Texas has
done maybe financially and maybe leading, lending support and those
kind of things to make positive results happen for the
oyster fishery and for fishermen in our in our resources.
Speaker 2 (26:26):
Yeah, well we've been we've been involved legislatively. That's one
piece that we don't really we don't highlight a whole
bunch or don't promote it, maybe not enough, but we've
been involved legislatively one to to to to create a
buyback program for oyster fishermen, but also to uh to
(26:50):
increase the sustainability of the fishery through those enhanced penalties
that I mentioned earlier. And we've been involved in policy
so that, I mean, that's a big piece of all
of this. But you know, financially, money in the water.
We've also been involved in, whether it be restoration projects
(27:11):
that have already taken place, like the Sabine Lake Deep Reef.
We've done projects in East Galveston Bay. We've done projects
in the Rockport area. We're looking to do a project
in Caronqua Bay here here off of Matagorda Bay. And
so those are that's oyster restoration work that we're looking
to get into. I think we've already committed a little
(27:34):
over two million dollars specific two oyster reef restoration and
we've pledged an additional five million dollars and we're looking
for projects to get involved in. So if there's conservation
partners out there that have a project that's permanently that's
currently permitted and looking for some additional financial resources, we're
(27:56):
there and available to help jump in.
Speaker 1 (27:58):
Now that's great, And you know, this whole habitat issue
has been something that's been on my heart for quite
a while on the coast, just you know, traveling along
the coast like I do, things aren't like they used
to be. And then you go six months later and
it's even more not like it used to be. So
much development, so much population growth and to think about
(28:20):
the pressure in twenty years from now, considering we know
that Texas population is slated to maybe double, a lot
more pressure on our coastal ecosystems, and I think that
I'll definitely salute Cca for looking at that, because we
can't sustain what we have now doing it like we've
(28:41):
been doing, and that's across the board.
Speaker 2 (28:44):
Yes, sir, you're absolutely right, and it not only it's
it's not only for oysters but also other fisheries. So yep,
it's very important to build up resiliency in your fisheries
so that you are prepared for the future and prepared
for the unknowns. I mean, we know population growth is coming,
(29:07):
we know that the pressures that that brings, and you
know the need for more fresh water, the need for
more shoreline protection that you know, we have to ensure
these things are in place for our base systems to
sustain that that.
Speaker 3 (29:22):
Population growth that coming.
Speaker 2 (29:24):
But also that resiliency is important for the unknowns. You know,
the potential freezes, the potential freshwater events, the potential major
hurricanes that come. So it's important that our fisheries can
not only tolerate that event but quickly rebound afterwards.
Speaker 1 (29:44):
In the next segment, we'll wrap up our conversation with
Shane Too, coastal Advocacy director for CCA, the Coastal Conservation Association.
You can learn more about them at c c A
Texas dot org. And don't forget to download the podcast
at this program but a klv I dot com. Click
on the podcast link and get archives of More Outdoors.
(30:06):
Welcome back to More Outdoors on News Talk five sixty
klv I wrapping up our conversation with Shane Bnou, Coastal
Advocacy director for the Coastal Conservation Association of Texas CCA.
You know what's interesting to me. I was doing some
research on a piece I was doing on the potential
of trophy trout, like maximum size of trout, and I
(30:28):
wanted to look gulf wide and Louisiana keeps really good
records of all of their fisheries in terms of records,
because the Louisiing Outdoor Writers Association does it. And when
I look for speckled trout, I saw sea trout. I
saw sand to sea trout record right, so centrout their
number one sand trout was twelve pounds twelve pounds. They
(30:52):
their top ten ended at eight something. And then I
looked at Florida and they don't have it like that,
but their top fish was like nine, and tech this
is like six, and you know, Mississippi was like a
ten or eleven, and I'm looking at Alabama was big too,
And I looked at the Louisiana list because it was,
you know, top ten. It wasn't just the one fish
and the biggest. The last fish caught in that top
(31:15):
ten was caught in nineteen eighty four. And the biggest
sand trot I've ever laid my eyes on I caught
in some being lake about ten years ago, and it
was probably two pounds, maybe two and a half maybe,
and it was like a mutant compared to most of
the sand trot I've ever seen. So at some point
something happened with that fishery and it probably maybe had
(31:35):
something to do with bycatch. I mean, no, bycatch has
been huge on those fish. But when I think about
like speckled trout fishery, flounder fishery, some of these things
changes have been made. I wonder if maybe because we're
being more conservation minded, we might stayve off some of that,
because you know, we don't know what could happen, Like
you said, there's so many things that could happen, But
(31:57):
that was an interesting look at what could happen the
top end of a fishery, and no one really knows
why for sure.
Speaker 2 (32:03):
Yeah, yeah, well you're right, no one can point their
finger to one specific thing, and it's most likely, you know,
a cumulative effect situation. However, you know, we need to
pay attention to the regulation piece of fisheries management. That's
always very important and it's always super controversial. Like you mentioned,
(32:23):
you throw speckled trout regulation out in the public press
and everyone's hair gets on fire.
Speaker 3 (32:31):
But we also got to pay attention to the water.
Speaker 2 (32:33):
Quality piece and getting people to get their hair on
fire about water quality, about fresh water inflows, about shoreline
protection or shoreline conservation. It's a little harder, but you know,
our coastal advocates need to kind of have that that
approach when it comes to those issues as well. And
(32:55):
so if we're able to manage not only manage the
fisheries through regulations, but also enhance the water that gets
to our base, then we might see a rebound on
some of those some of those records that we can't
seem to approach any longer.
Speaker 1 (33:10):
Well, it's even true it with specs. I mean it's been,
you know, and you got to ask yourself these questions. Now,
not that those are the most important thing, but it's
at some point it's a gauge if nothing's even getting
remotely close, you know, if no one's even in the stratosphere.
So I'm always kind of looking at that stuff. But
you mentioned water getting to our base. I haven't been
(33:31):
to the San Jacino Monument since I was in fourth grade,
which was a while back, and I wasn't used in
about two months ago, me and my wife and daughter,
and there was a major traffic in ways. Our app
took us down by there, and I'm stopped at the
ferry and there's a warning sign for every single species.
(33:51):
Don't eat it, you know, because the dioxins and and
I've and I've actually written about that area before, but
I like layama I balls on these signs, you know,
and I'm looking at all of it. I mean, crab, specs,
founder everything. Water quality is a real issue and a
real thing, and it's not a left or a right issue.
(34:13):
I had someone call one time on the program and
I mentioned about water quality, and someone got on me because, oh,
you're just turning into a lefty or whatever, they said,
I was going to be coming. I said, Now, you know,
clean water isn't a political issue. It's a human issue.
And there are a lot of people Indians from cancer
hospital from brid City, Texas who had a super fun
site at their place and there.
Speaker 3 (34:34):
Was water issues.
Speaker 1 (34:36):
They would like to not have cancer, you know, And
there's there's that side of things, you know.
Speaker 2 (34:42):
I was if you didn't go there, I was about
to state that, Yeah, as ask anyone that lives in
a heavily industrialized petrochemical zone. Look at the cancer rates
in those areas in comparison to not you know, not
only other areas in the US, but just look at
other areas in Texas away from those activities.
Speaker 3 (35:04):
And yeah, it's important.
Speaker 2 (35:05):
It's very very important, and people need to people need
to care about that. And it is not left or right.
It is it is human life. It is exactly quality
of life. And so if we're able to improve that
for the fisheries, then it's going to translate to our
quality of life improving as well.
Speaker 1 (35:25):
And that's true because we're utilizing that, we're enjoying our
time in the water where we're enjoying these great fisheries.
You know, we're eating some you know, some red fish
on the half shell, you know, whatever we happen to
be doing, but we're enjoying it in a healthy ecosystem,
healthy people, and you know, it's just really interesting. You know,
if we could all have time machines, you know, to
(35:48):
go back and be able to I would love to
go photograph and video you know, these places one hundred
years ago and then show people the differences, you know,
and you can't do that though, But one thing you
can do is just say, look, everybody knows it's changing.
You can open your eyes and look around. Let's find
ways to to to regulate what we're doing in terms
(36:10):
of you know, recreational commercial fisheries, but also look at
these habitat issues because there's such an an important part
of this.
Speaker 3 (36:18):
I mean, you.
Speaker 1 (36:19):
Can't have fish without good quality habitat. And you know
what's cool is, though, because I'm a Sabina, you got
to mention this. This doesn't just in the bays. We've
got some reefing stuff happening out of Sabinely, can we
talk a little bit about that absolutely.
Speaker 2 (36:36):
I mean there's a couple of reef sites outside Sabine Lake,
but the newest and the freshest is right off the
Sea Room Park about two miles from the from the shoreline.
So theoretically it's it's a spot you could kayak too,
but it's a newly permanent site, just received material a
(36:57):
couple of months ago, and it'll continue to receive received material.
And so we've got you know, there's great conservation partners involved,
Industrial partners involved, so Cca Texas Friends of Sabine Reef,
and then you've got companies like Sempra and Shaneer and
there's a handful of others that that are that are
(37:17):
working with the nonprofits to help locate material but also
give direct funds to purchase that material and get it deployed.
So that'll be a great place to catch some big trout,
some big red fish, who knows, maybe maybe even some
some koba, some leaning as a as they move in.
(37:38):
But uh, nearshore reefing is a very important piece of our.
Speaker 3 (37:42):
Kind of our habitat profile. And yeah, Sabine Lake is
right off Sabine Lake is getting is the newest one.
Speaker 1 (37:49):
Well, I can tell you this much. I'm not sure
if it's still, it's got to be there, But there
was a we used to call it the leaning Tower
of Pisa. It was an old rig platform that's leaning
over and it's just the platform legs and it's probably
about two mile and a half two miles off of
Sea rim or between there and in High Island and to
we used to maul the trout there and bull redfish
(38:10):
in the late summers, school around that thing, you know,
out there. So that's good that this is something that
the aver I think sometimes, you know, reefing is great offshore,
but you know, not all of us have the boat
to get out there, right, you know. And it's great
if it's forty miles off shore, but what about us
do to like in a kayak or a john boat?
Speaker 3 (38:32):
You know.
Speaker 1 (38:32):
So this is great, and I would like to see
us hint hint, parks on my life tagging trout around
these areas to figure out where they're going and doing.
Of course, if I was like Elon Musk, I would
have the chester more put a tag in everything foundation
and like tag all of our fisheries and figure all
that stuff out. But that's a that's a great big
(38:55):
wind and something that's great because you mentioned other partners
coming in. This is a way to use industry the
way that other people can because we're not going to
stop industry and we got to have jobs, but we
might als well work with these industrial partners and things
like this to help do positive strides for the fishery
and for people in the clean water. Yeah.
Speaker 2 (39:14):
Yeah, well, I mean in industry may not have always
been no, you know, compliant and had the ecology of
the bays that you know with their best interests, but
certainly now the people that work in industry under understand
(39:37):
the need to be involved and to enhance the ecosystem.
Speaker 1 (39:42):
Thank you so much for listening to More Outdoors tonight.
You can follow me at the Chester More on Instagram.
That's the Chester More on Instagram, Higher Calling Wildlife on Facebook,
my blog at Higher Calling dot net, and my golf
Great White Shark blog at Golf Great Whites. Thank you
so much for listening to this program. God bless and
(40:04):
have a great outdoors weekend.
I have sixty klv. I. This is Chester Moore, and
I have a good friend of mine, a guy I've
known for a long time.
Speaker 2 (00:07):
Now.
Speaker 1 (00:07):
I've got Shane Ben Though he's the Coastal Advocacy Director
for cdc A Texas. Shane's probably been this program fifteen
twenty times over the years and various capacities dating back
to when he worked for Texas Parks and Wildlife at
c's Center Texas. But when I need to talk with
someone on the Texas coast about ecosystems, especially oyster, is
(00:28):
always default to Shane because he knows so much about it.
So Shane, welcome to the program.
Speaker 2 (00:36):
Chester, thanks for having me again. And it's always fun.
I look forward to these things, and yeah, I look
forward to the conversation.
Speaker 1 (00:45):
So oysters have been really in the news on if
you're a coastal fisherman. There's been a lot of a
lot of oyster mentions in the last I would say
almost ten years, and various capacities, and really things heated
up after I believe it was Hurricane Harvey came in
and you know there was some damage and stuff to
reefs and things sort of changed. But just before we
(01:07):
get into all that. Let's talk about the oyster itself
and the role it plays in our coastal ecosystems.
Speaker 3 (01:14):
Okay, hey, I'm happy to do that.
Speaker 2 (01:15):
So you know, oysters are a keystone species.
Speaker 3 (01:21):
In our bays.
Speaker 2 (01:22):
The oyster we have in Texas is called the Eastern oyster,
and its range is quite extensive. It's ranges from Mexico
all the way up the Atlantic seaboard and and and
so it's it's.
Speaker 3 (01:41):
Quite a resilient critter.
Speaker 2 (01:43):
And you know, they has a wide variety of salinities
that it can tolerate, a wide variety.
Speaker 3 (01:51):
Of temperatures that it can tolerate.
Speaker 2 (01:54):
But not only is it an animal, it's it's a
habitat uh and it creates. It's an animal that creates
its own habitat for itself, and in the process of
doing so, it is creating habitat for hundreds of other
aquatic species. There's been around three hundred and six different
(02:15):
aquatic species that have been identified that use oysters and
the habitat they create for either a food source or
for refuge or for habitat. So very very important species
in our based systems, and they provide all sorts of
ecological services while they're in the water. The one that
(02:40):
most people are familiar with is their filtration abilities. So
you know, an individual oyster can filter quite a number
of gallons in a day. I think the number is
that you'll commonly hear one oysters fifty gallons per day
worth of filtration. And and so they clean the water, uh,
(03:04):
they remove suspended solids out of out of the water,
they remove algae out of the water, and in the
process they're also removing uh some some some chemicals uh
toxins that may be.
Speaker 3 (03:17):
In the waters as well.
Speaker 2 (03:18):
So they're making our bays healthier by by those providing
those services. When you think about oysters as a group,
we refer to that as a reef, and the oyster
reef itself provides shoreline stabilization. It provides wave attenuation so
(03:39):
that the waves are less and on the back side
of the reef you get more sunlight penetration, which is
beneficial for sea grass. And then and that there are
natural storm barrier.
Speaker 3 (03:53):
You mentioned Hurricane Harvey.
Speaker 2 (03:55):
There's been a number of storms that have impacted the
Texas coast, and when we have these oyster reefs in
place along our shorelines, that is our first line of
defense when we have a storm search coming to the coast.
So very important species to our bays, not only to
the fishes, but also to us as coastal residents, and
(04:17):
they're an important food source for the Texas economy. So
they're often mired in controversy as a result of all
those sort of sometimes competing interests.
Speaker 1 (04:31):
So for a long time, it was like, you know,
if it was a coastal fisheries issue in the news,
it was pretty much some kind of a bag limit
or a size limit that was took the headlines, whether
it's speckled trout, whether it's flound or whatever. But then
things changed and we started hearing a lot more about
oysters and habitat, and if my memory serves me correctly,
(04:54):
a lot of this started happening after the hurricane.
Speaker 2 (04:57):
Yeah, and you know, hurricane is impactful two oysters, just
because of that storm surge that's associated with it and
the amount of sediment these storms can move around, so
you get oyster reefs that can potentially get covered up
from siltation. One of the most impactful ones to the
(05:19):
Texas coast was in two thousand and eight with Hurricane
Ike and it was that one which sort of sent
out alarm bell saying, oh my gosh, we really need
to kind of focus on our oyster fishery and what
it's going to look like into the future. But historically,
(05:41):
most of the commercial oyster harvests had come out of
Galveston Bay, and that all changed after Hurricane Ike, because
you know, we had the vast majority of recent Galveston
Bay were covered over with silt and we lost a
lot of the live oysters as a result of that,
(06:01):
and so the oyster fishery had to shift their focus
further down the coast into some smaller bay systems. So
you started to see the impacts of that fishing pressure
in these smaller areas much more quickly than we had historically.
And so again the alarm bells went off. Okay, we
(06:22):
got to really start trying to find out ways to
manage this fishery and manage that effort a little bit better.
Speaker 3 (06:31):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (06:31):
It's interesting because I live in the Sabine area, of course,
and we have a pretty large oystery from the south
end of the lake at me Skip Point, and that
thing hasn't been harvested since I think there was some
minor harvesting in the sixties maybe, but that I've always
heard it wasn't harvested because of freshwater inflows and things
like that. And I guess what I'm trying to get
(06:54):
at is that maybe all oyster reefs are not created
equal for all purposes. Know that, you know, there may
be reasons you can't eat them for health purposes, but
they still serve as a good fish. Abbitat is that
that amount?
Speaker 2 (07:06):
And yeah, absolutely, And Sabine Lake, you know there has
been pressure to open it up to become harvested, but historically,
as you mentioned, is not in an area that that
gets fished. And and yes, human health concerns are a
(07:27):
part of that calculus. So when you get a lot
of fresh water runoff, which Sabine Lake obviously gets a ton,
you get runoff from the landscape in which so we
you have pecal coliforms and other bacterias that could be
harmful to people that those oysters are by accumulating. So
(07:47):
you don't want people eating those oysters if they're not
safe to eat. So you see that more so in
areas that get a lot of rain rainfall, Sabine Lake
and Galveston. But Sabine gives you a good picture of
what a oyster reef can look like if it's not harvested.
So it's kind of like, you know, we I like
(08:08):
to look at Sabine Lake like a like a study area,
and so we can we can conduct restoration in that lake,
create new oyster reefs in that lake. We can monitor
that deep reef that you mentioned and watch as it
as it handles different environmental conditions without you know, the human.
Speaker 3 (08:28):
Pressure the harvest on top of it. Uh.
Speaker 2 (08:31):
But I've been out in a in a in a
parks and a life boat when they're doing samples off
of that reef and I've you know, I've on on
the on the side scan.
Speaker 3 (08:40):
I've seen the profile of that reef and it.
Speaker 2 (08:44):
Does a five and a half foot six foot jump
from the top of the reef and falls down.
Speaker 3 (08:51):
So it's got a great deal.
Speaker 2 (08:54):
Of vertical vertical relief. Now that may not all be
oyster growth. It's not all live oyster growth, to be sure.
There may be some shoaling going on that's making that
profile bigger than what it actually is. But the point
is is that that shell and that structure is there
and it's serving a purpose. But these things move over
(09:18):
time as they move with the salinity gradient. So if
you go back and look at old maps of Sabine Lake,
the reefs used to be further out.
Speaker 3 (09:28):
They used to be near, you know, right near the pass,
and in.
Speaker 2 (09:32):
Fact, the reefs almost went all the way across the pass,
and you had kind of like a natural dam at
one point in time, until all that was dredged out.
And so as the lake got as the channel's got dredged,
you have salt water going further and further into the lake.
And that's why the reef is where it's at now.
Speaker 1 (09:50):
When we come back on More Outdoors, we'll talk more
with Shamee to Know from the Coastal Conservation Association about
oysters and their impact on fishing and conservation. Welcome back
to More Outdoors on News Talk five sixty klv I.
This is Chester More. You can follow me at the
Chestermore on Instagram, Higher Calling dot net, my blog, and
(10:13):
you can also check out my Golf Great White Sharks
blog at Golf great Whites dot com. Continuing our conversation
with Shane Benow, Coastal Advocacy Director for CCA, Texas. And
that's interesting because a lot of people think, because all
of us have grown up well after channelization happened, that
(10:34):
salinity levels now are what they were one hundred years ago.
But there's a lot of difference, isn't there.
Speaker 3 (10:41):
Oh yeah, there's there's a time.
Speaker 2 (10:42):
I mean, our landscape on the Texas go, it's not
only in Sabine Lake, but all across. You know, the
geographic coastline has has changed. We're we're sticking a bunch
of straws in the ground and sucking up all the
water where you know, we've dammed up most of our rivers.
There's one more river that reaches the coasts that has
(11:05):
not been dammed, but there's actually a permit application in
the works right now to try to put a dam
on that one. That's the Lavaca River. And so, yeah,
we've we've changed the salinity. We've rerouted rivers, yeah, Rasis River,
the Colorado River. So we've changed the you know, the
salinity matrix of our base systems. And as a result
(11:27):
of that, you've seen the habitat change, You've seen seagrass move,
and you've seen the location of oyster reefs change.
Speaker 1 (11:36):
So there have been some changes to the regulated part
of the oyster fishery in the last few years, can
you kind of run us through those.
Speaker 2 (11:45):
Yeah, there's been there's been quite a bit of a movement,
and again it really does go back to Hurricane Ike.
After Hurricane Ike, the Texas Parks and Wallace Department established
the authority to open and close base systems based off
of abundance in their samples that they collect, so that
(12:06):
if all the fishermen had to go to Lavaca Bay,
Parks and Wildlife had the ability to close that bay
once it was fished down to a certain level. So
that was that was That was one big thing that
had happened.
Speaker 3 (12:19):
Since then, there have.
Speaker 2 (12:21):
Been nine small areas, nine small base systems that have
been permanently closed to oyster fishing. Some of them were
closed to serve as as nursery base so kind of
like a seed source for the overall greater based system,
and other ones were closed. The Carlos Mosquiton Airs Bay
(12:44):
complex were closed for their ecological value that they.
Speaker 3 (12:48):
Serve to that area. You have a cedar value.
Speaker 2 (12:52):
A tidle pass moving through that area is very important
to the water quality to the adjacent based systems. San
Antonio and Aurensis based systems. You've got hooping cranes there,
and other important commercial fisheries there like black drum fishery
that rely upon vibrant oyster reefs.
Speaker 3 (13:14):
So those three areas are closed.
Speaker 2 (13:17):
You have a shoreline buffer on the entire Texas coast now,
so nowhere within three hundred feet from a shoreline are
supposed to be harvesting oysters, though most of the shorelines
are all the shorelines are theoretically closed from harvest, and
Parks of Malife has made some adjustments in the percent
(13:39):
of undersized oysters or shell that the oyster fishermen are
allowed to put into their sacks when they're harvesting oysters.
Outside of that, we've had legislative changes. Most of those
have dealt with the penalties that are associated with violation
(14:01):
they've been in. There's an enhanceable aspect now to oyster violations.
Whereas before an oyster fisherman, no matter how many times
he he was keeping undersized oysters or how many times
he was fishing in closed areas, he would just get
a class seed misdemeanor. Now if they if they harvest,
(14:23):
if they have more than thirty percent of their catch
undersized it's immediate enhancement to a Class B. And if
they're a repeat offender for whatever reason undersized or fishing
and closed areas, it's it's enhanceable to Class B. So
the penalties have a little more sting. Rather than just
a one hundred dollars or two hundred dollars fine, they're
(14:46):
looking at potential couple thousand dollars in fines and even
possible state jail time again if they're egregious violators.
Speaker 3 (14:55):
So the fish, the fishing industry.
Speaker 2 (14:58):
Is a little more account than they used to have been,
which which which helps for the sustainability.
Speaker 1 (15:04):
You know what's interesting, Like when it was mainly the
Galveston complex, it's such a big complex and a little
deeper water than the skinnier water down south. I think
when it started moving, they started putting their attention down there.
Speaker 3 (15:18):
It became a lot.
Speaker 1 (15:18):
More visible to the naked eye on what was happening.
I remember going literally a week before the freeze of
twenty one to fish with a friend of mine who
had a little lodge for him and his family on
uh Copon Obey down there, and he's coming in and
watching him walk in, he's just shaking his head. He goes,
(15:40):
I said, what's wrong. Good's gone. They had like a
little one maybe one and a half acre reef outside
of his place, and he'd been gone for a month
and he was told that that He was told by
his friends. They oystered it and he went in there.
He said, it's just completely gone. It's it's wiped out,
you know. So I think some of that made people because,
(16:01):
you know, Shane, there's we've talked about this before. Habitat
in fishing is sometimes hard to drill down to fishermen
because you know, you still have the same amount of water,
you know what I mean. It's like, and it's it's
harder than fisheries issues Like if I put something about
seagrass out, I'll get a certain amount of people comment.
(16:22):
But if I put speckled trout regulations is going to change, boom,
It's like a nuclear bomb went off, you know. And
I think with this oyster thing, it might have been
the first time I saw a lot of eyeballs get
on a habitat issue all along the coast.
Speaker 3 (16:38):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (16:39):
I think we're you know, anglers in general are becoming
more aware of the value of that habitat and as
you as you mentioned, because it's it's more a little
more in your face along the middle and lower coast
than it was just on the upper coast when you're
and you know, the example you gave is the exact
(17:01):
example I've heard dozens of times specific to Coconat and
Ransa Space also East Matagorda Bay. But wade fishermen would
state that reefs that they used to wade at their
knees to their waist are now between their waist and
their chest if they're there at all. And so what
(17:25):
has happened is these reefs that had quite a bit
of vertical relief, not unlike the Sabine Lake Deep reef,
quite a bit of vertical relief. Over time, they've been
dredged and you know, shells been removed and scattered.
Speaker 3 (17:41):
So what you see is a lot of times the
profile of the reef is altered. It changes. It goes
from something that's.
Speaker 2 (17:49):
Quite complex with that vertical relief and different kind of
structural features to something.
Speaker 3 (17:57):
That's more flat and laid out.
Speaker 2 (17:58):
So it's transitioning from the Texas hill country to the
Texas coastal plains. That that's the kind of difference in
the landscape that we're that's happening at the bottom of
our bays as a result of of this sort of
pressure having to migrate further and further down the coast.
(18:19):
So there's I mean, there's some there's some things that
we can continue to do to try to improve the fishery,
but you know, in that process, we just want to
make sure that we conserve and sustain what we've what
we've got, because we don't want to lose our oyster
fishery like some other states have and they're kind of
(18:42):
in the process of trying to rebuild their fishery as
a result of over exploitation.
Speaker 1 (18:48):
Well, I know, Cca, Texas and the Texas Parks and
Wildlife are not out there going you know, we're going
to wage war on the commercial oyster fisherman. This is
about the resource itself. And I know there is some
like positive things that are being like, like you know,
oyster farming, and there's restorations. Let's talk about some of
those things you guys have been involved in or that
(19:09):
you're looking at.
Speaker 2 (19:09):
Yeah, so you know, we've we've sort of we've laid
out I think it was two thousand and twenty or
twenty and twenty one, we and a number of other
groups signed on too. They signed on to our letter
to sort of state our concerns with the oyster fishery
and we want to will it, you know, we want
to willingly work with conservation partners in the industry to
(19:34):
to chart a path forward for the industry and not
rely only on our public reefs to provide oysters to
the market. So, yeah, the number one thing was the
creation of the what's called Texas Cultivated Oyster Mericulture or
ta COOM.
Speaker 1 (19:53):
When we come back on More Outdoors, we'll talk more
with Shane Bano from the Coastal Conservation Association of the
Great State of Texas. Welcome back to More Outdoors on
News Top five sixty KLVI. This is Chester Moore. You
can download the podcast of this program. Go to KLVI
dot com, click on the podcast link. You'll see archives
(20:16):
of More Outdoor dating back several years. Continue our conversation
with Shane Benow, Coastal Advocacy director for CCA.
Speaker 2 (20:24):
And that is what you mentioned, that's oyster farming, and
so oysters are are provided to farmers from a hatchery
and they're about when the farmers get them. They're about
as big as your pinky fingernail, and then they're stocked
into cages and you'll see these cages floating in.
Speaker 3 (20:41):
The water column.
Speaker 2 (20:43):
And then they're grown to market size and sent to
mostly for the half shell market. And so this is
a new industry to Texas and it's growing and it's
going to be one piece.
Speaker 3 (20:56):
Of the future of the oyster fishery in Texas.
Speaker 2 (20:59):
So if you fish in anywhere from Galveston to Corpus,
you may see one of these things look like a
bunch of crab traps floating on the top of the
water column.
Speaker 3 (21:11):
And so there's that's an oyster farm.
Speaker 2 (21:14):
The sizes range from the smallest one I think that's
permitted as two acres. The largest one that's currently permittent
is thirty acres in Aransas Bay, but there's a fifty
acre site under review for Keller Bay, and that one
specifically is made up of a cooperative of commercial oyster
(21:36):
fishermen oyster dredgers that are looking into getting into the
farming piece of this. And then the other sort of
idea that we would like to see move forward is
the expansion of the on bottom lease program. Okay, and
in Texas it's we call it a certificate of location.
Speaker 3 (21:58):
Okay Ingal Bay.
Speaker 2 (22:01):
There are currently about twenty six hundred acres that oyster
fishermen have under certificate a location. And this started, I
believe in the nineteen nineties, and at that time it
was just utilized for the oyster fishermen that applied for
and got these cols or certificate locations, and they were
(22:23):
transplanting oysters from areas where they weren't safe to eat,
in areas that were closed, harvesting them and then moving
them to their certificates of location, and then after they've
filtered and cleaned and deporated, they would then go in
and harvest them for consumption. Well, what's happened with that
program over time is that the oyster commercial oyster companies
(22:47):
that have these cols in Galveston Bay, they've had to
stop transplantings at the direction of the department because they
were removing too much from.
Speaker 3 (22:57):
These closed areas.
Speaker 2 (22:59):
And they started doing is bringing in their own material
river rock could be concrete, rubble could be old oyster.
Speaker 3 (23:07):
Shell, what have you.
Speaker 2 (23:09):
And they plant that substrate on their lease or on
their col and it grows oysters so it is a
and it's it's an it's not necessarily oyster farming. It's
more like oyster ranching, but it is it is a
way to grow.
Speaker 3 (23:26):
To the Texas for oyster. Right, It's a way to grow.
It's just a little less intensive than the merriculture piece.
Speaker 2 (23:33):
It's it's a little more hands off, but it takes
quite a bit of material, quite a bit of infrastructure
when you think about having to move barge loads of
rock out to your lease and dump it off into
the water.
Speaker 1 (23:46):
But it's is there a component of that that you
know ends up benefiting the fishery by creating new habitat.
Speaker 3 (23:53):
Oh absolutely.
Speaker 2 (23:54):
I mean fishermen in Galveston Bay that nowhere these leases
are love to drift fish over them. For speckled trout
is very very productive fishing areas.
Speaker 3 (24:05):
They're creating more oyster reefs, is what they're doing.
Speaker 2 (24:08):
But they have exclusive harvest rights to the oysters on
their lease. So we would like to see that expand
to some degree across the at least in Galveston Bay
and hopefully across the coast into some of these other
major based systems interest because ultimately it's a way to
reduce the pressure on the public reefs and allows the
(24:31):
oyster fishermen more opportunity to get product to market. Right
now or historically, I should say eighty percent of the
harvest in Texas has come from public reefs and twenty
percent has come from these private leases.
Speaker 3 (24:49):
Those numbers should be flipped.
Speaker 2 (24:51):
In my mind, we should use the public reefs as
the safety valve for when the lease system fails for
environmental reasons or whatever. If you have a if you
have a loss in your in your product because of
fresh water inflows or too high salinities and predation from snails,
(25:13):
then you go to the public reefs to still harvest
your product.
Speaker 3 (25:17):
I just feel like we have kind.
Speaker 2 (25:18):
Of the priorities of where the oystermen are taking the
wishes from kind of flipped and hopefully one day we'll
have a more robust lease program for the oyster fishermen
to get into and invest more into.
Speaker 3 (25:32):
That into that resource.
Speaker 2 (25:34):
And when you look at how the public reefs are
treated by the oyster fishermen in contrast to how their
own private leases are treated, you'll then understand why we
need to move to more leases, because.
Speaker 1 (25:50):
Well, it's like going on public hunting versus a lease.
You know, it's a whole different So I think everyone
listening or could probably figure that out. If it's your
own place, you take a little better care of it,
you know, or those kind of things, or you you
you know, maybe there are a few unethical people, you
keep them off the property, you know, and it's public.
(26:10):
Then you know you can't do that. So tell me
about CCA's commitment to this and what CCA Texas has
done maybe financially and maybe leading, lending support and those
kind of things to make positive results happen for the
oyster fishery and for fishermen in our in our resources.
Speaker 2 (26:26):
Yeah, well we've been we've been involved legislatively. That's one
piece that we don't really we don't highlight a whole
bunch or don't promote it, maybe not enough, but we've
been involved legislatively one to to to to create a
buyback program for oyster fishermen, but also to uh to
(26:50):
increase the sustainability of the fishery through those enhanced penalties
that I mentioned earlier. And we've been involved in policy
so that, I mean, that's a big piece of all
of this. But you know, financially, money in the water.
We've also been involved in, whether it be restoration projects
(27:11):
that have already taken place, like the Sabine Lake Deep Reef.
We've done projects in East Galveston Bay. We've done projects
in the Rockport area. We're looking to do a project
in Caronqua Bay here here off of Matagorda Bay. And
so those are that's oyster restoration work that we're looking
to get into. I think we've already committed a little
(27:34):
over two million dollars specific two oyster reef restoration and
we've pledged an additional five million dollars and we're looking
for projects to get involved in. So if there's conservation
partners out there that have a project that's permanently that's
currently permitted and looking for some additional financial resources, we're
(27:56):
there and available to help jump in.
Speaker 1 (27:58):
Now that's great, And you know, this whole habitat issue
has been something that's been on my heart for quite
a while on the coast, just you know, traveling along
the coast like I do, things aren't like they used
to be. And then you go six months later and
it's even more not like it used to be. So
much development, so much population growth and to think about
(28:20):
the pressure in twenty years from now, considering we know
that Texas population is slated to maybe double, a lot
more pressure on our coastal ecosystems, and I think that
I'll definitely salute Cca for looking at that, because we
can't sustain what we have now doing it like we've
(28:41):
been doing, and that's across the board.
Speaker 2 (28:44):
Yes, sir, you're absolutely right, and it not only it's
it's not only for oysters but also other fisheries. So yep,
it's very important to build up resiliency in your fisheries
so that you are prepared for the future and prepared
for the unknowns. I mean, we know population growth is coming,
(29:07):
we know that the pressures that that brings, and you
know the need for more fresh water, the need for
more shoreline protection that you know, we have to ensure
these things are in place for our base systems to
sustain that that.
Speaker 3 (29:22):
Population growth that coming.
Speaker 2 (29:24):
But also that resiliency is important for the unknowns. You know,
the potential freezes, the potential freshwater events, the potential major
hurricanes that come. So it's important that our fisheries can
not only tolerate that event but quickly rebound afterwards.
Speaker 1 (29:44):
In the next segment, we'll wrap up our conversation with
Shane Too, coastal Advocacy director for CCA, the Coastal Conservation Association.
You can learn more about them at c c A
Texas dot org. And don't forget to download the podcast
at this program but a klv I dot com. Click
on the podcast link and get archives of More Outdoors.
(30:06):
Welcome back to More Outdoors on News Talk five sixty
klv I wrapping up our conversation with Shane Bnou, Coastal
Advocacy director for the Coastal Conservation Association of Texas CCA.
You know what's interesting to me. I was doing some
research on a piece I was doing on the potential
of trophy trout, like maximum size of trout, and I
(30:28):
wanted to look gulf wide and Louisiana keeps really good
records of all of their fisheries in terms of records,
because the Louisiing Outdoor Writers Association does it. And when
I look for speckled trout, I saw sea trout. I
saw sand to sea trout record right, so centrout their
number one sand trout was twelve pounds twelve pounds. They
(30:52):
their top ten ended at eight something. And then I
looked at Florida and they don't have it like that,
but their top fish was like nine, and tech this
is like six, and you know, Mississippi was like a
ten or eleven, and I'm looking at Alabama was big too,
And I looked at the Louisiana list because it was,
you know, top ten. It wasn't just the one fish
and the biggest. The last fish caught in that top
(31:15):
ten was caught in nineteen eighty four. And the biggest
sand trot I've ever laid my eyes on I caught
in some being lake about ten years ago, and it
was probably two pounds, maybe two and a half maybe,
and it was like a mutant compared to most of
the sand trot I've ever seen. So at some point
something happened with that fishery and it probably maybe had
(31:35):
something to do with bycatch. I mean, no, bycatch has
been huge on those fish. But when I think about
like speckled trout fishery, flounder fishery, some of these things
changes have been made. I wonder if maybe because we're
being more conservation minded, we might stayve off some of that,
because you know, we don't know what could happen, Like
you said, there's so many things that could happen, But
(31:57):
that was an interesting look at what could happen the
top end of a fishery, and no one really knows
why for sure.
Speaker 2 (32:03):
Yeah, yeah, well you're right, no one can point their
finger to one specific thing, and it's most likely, you know,
a cumulative effect situation. However, you know, we need to
pay attention to the regulation piece of fisheries management. That's
always very important and it's always super controversial. Like you mentioned,
(32:23):
you throw speckled trout regulation out in the public press
and everyone's hair gets on fire.
Speaker 3 (32:31):
But we also got to pay attention to the water.
Speaker 2 (32:33):
Quality piece and getting people to get their hair on
fire about water quality, about fresh water inflows, about shoreline
protection or shoreline conservation. It's a little harder, but you know,
our coastal advocates need to kind of have that that
approach when it comes to those issues as well. And
(32:55):
so if we're able to manage not only manage the
fisheries through regulations, but also enhance the water that gets
to our base, then we might see a rebound on
some of those some of those records that we can't
seem to approach any longer.
Speaker 1 (33:10):
Well, it's even true it with specs. I mean it's been,
you know, and you got to ask yourself these questions. Now,
not that those are the most important thing, but it's
at some point it's a gauge if nothing's even getting
remotely close, you know, if no one's even in the stratosphere.
So I'm always kind of looking at that stuff. But
you mentioned water getting to our base. I haven't been
(33:31):
to the San Jacino Monument since I was in fourth grade,
which was a while back, and I wasn't used in
about two months ago, me and my wife and daughter,
and there was a major traffic in ways. Our app
took us down by there, and I'm stopped at the
ferry and there's a warning sign for every single species.
(33:51):
Don't eat it, you know, because the dioxins and and
I've and I've actually written about that area before, but
I like layama I balls on these signs, you know,
and I'm looking at all of it. I mean, crab, specs,
founder everything. Water quality is a real issue and a
real thing, and it's not a left or a right issue.
(34:13):
I had someone call one time on the program and
I mentioned about water quality, and someone got on me because, oh,
you're just turning into a lefty or whatever, they said,
I was going to be coming. I said, Now, you know,
clean water isn't a political issue. It's a human issue.
And there are a lot of people Indians from cancer
hospital from brid City, Texas who had a super fun
site at their place and there.
Speaker 3 (34:34):
Was water issues.
Speaker 1 (34:36):
They would like to not have cancer, you know, And
there's there's that side of things, you know.
Speaker 2 (34:42):
I was if you didn't go there, I was about
to state that, Yeah, as ask anyone that lives in
a heavily industrialized petrochemical zone. Look at the cancer rates
in those areas in comparison to not you know, not
only other areas in the US, but just look at
other areas in Texas away from those activities.
Speaker 3 (35:04):
And yeah, it's important.
Speaker 2 (35:05):
It's very very important, and people need to people need
to care about that. And it is not left or right.
It is it is human life. It is exactly quality
of life. And so if we're able to improve that
for the fisheries, then it's going to translate to our
quality of life improving as well.
Speaker 1 (35:25):
And that's true because we're utilizing that, we're enjoying our
time in the water where we're enjoying these great fisheries.
You know, we're eating some you know, some red fish
on the half shell, you know, whatever we happen to
be doing, but we're enjoying it in a healthy ecosystem,
healthy people, and you know, it's just really interesting. You know,
if we could all have time machines, you know, to
(35:48):
go back and be able to I would love to
go photograph and video you know, these places one hundred
years ago and then show people the differences, you know,
and you can't do that though, But one thing you
can do is just say, look, everybody knows it's changing.
You can open your eyes and look around. Let's find
ways to to to regulate what we're doing in terms
(36:10):
of you know, recreational commercial fisheries, but also look at
these habitat issues because there's such an an important part
of this.
Speaker 3 (36:18):
I mean, you.
Speaker 1 (36:19):
Can't have fish without good quality habitat. And you know
what's cool is, though, because I'm a Sabina, you got
to mention this. This doesn't just in the bays. We've
got some reefing stuff happening out of Sabinely, can we
talk a little bit about that absolutely.
Speaker 2 (36:36):
I mean there's a couple of reef sites outside Sabine Lake,
but the newest and the freshest is right off the
Sea Room Park about two miles from the from the shoreline.
So theoretically it's it's a spot you could kayak too,
but it's a newly permanent site, just received material a
(36:57):
couple of months ago, and it'll continue to receive received material.
And so we've got you know, there's great conservation partners involved,
Industrial partners involved, so Cca Texas Friends of Sabine Reef,
and then you've got companies like Sempra and Shaneer and
there's a handful of others that that are that are
(37:17):
working with the nonprofits to help locate material but also
give direct funds to purchase that material and get it deployed.
So that'll be a great place to catch some big trout,
some big red fish, who knows, maybe maybe even some
some koba, some leaning as a as they move in.
(37:38):
But uh, nearshore reefing is a very important piece of our.
Speaker 3 (37:42):
Kind of our habitat profile. And yeah, Sabine Lake is
right off Sabine Lake is getting is the newest one.
Speaker 1 (37:49):
Well, I can tell you this much. I'm not sure
if it's still, it's got to be there, But there
was a we used to call it the leaning Tower
of Pisa. It was an old rig platform that's leaning
over and it's just the platform legs and it's probably
about two mile and a half two miles off of
Sea rim or between there and in High Island and to
we used to maul the trout there and bull redfish
(38:10):
in the late summers, school around that thing, you know,
out there. So that's good that this is something that
the aver I think sometimes, you know, reefing is great offshore,
but you know, not all of us have the boat
to get out there, right, you know. And it's great
if it's forty miles off shore, but what about us
do to like in a kayak or a john boat?
Speaker 3 (38:32):
You know.
Speaker 1 (38:32):
So this is great, and I would like to see
us hint hint, parks on my life tagging trout around
these areas to figure out where they're going and doing.
Of course, if I was like Elon Musk, I would
have the chester more put a tag in everything foundation
and like tag all of our fisheries and figure all
that stuff out. But that's a that's a great big
(38:55):
wind and something that's great because you mentioned other partners
coming in. This is a way to use industry the
way that other people can because we're not going to
stop industry and we got to have jobs, but we
might als well work with these industrial partners and things
like this to help do positive strides for the fishery
and for people in the clean water. Yeah.
Speaker 2 (39:14):
Yeah, well, I mean in industry may not have always
been no, you know, compliant and had the ecology of
the bays that you know with their best interests, but
certainly now the people that work in industry under understand
(39:37):
the need to be involved and to enhance the ecosystem.
Speaker 1 (39:42):
Thank you so much for listening to More Outdoors tonight.
You can follow me at the Chester More on Instagram.
That's the Chester More on Instagram, Higher Calling Wildlife on Facebook,
my blog at Higher Calling dot net, and my golf
Great White Shark blog at Golf Great Whites. Thank you
so much for listening to this program. God bless and
(40:04):
have a great outdoors weekend.
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