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THE RE-CREATION OF OUR OYSTER FISHERIES.


If one only looks to the conduct of some of those who have been engaged
in our oyster fisheries, the reason for their present defective state
will be readily apparent. The Fisheries Commissioners well express it
when they state that "If a person takes up ground only for the purpose
of collecting and selling whatever oysters he finds upon it, and
bestows no care in providing for the continuity of the supply, that
ground must cease to be productive." And apart from this it will be
found that even when every effort has been made to provide for
continuous supply, yet the matter is by no means easy.

The truth is the oyster fisheries have been managed in a happy-go-lucky
way. There has been but little care taken in their conservation, and
the inevitable result is that the winnings, as the official figures
show, are rapidly failing. The same thing is not peculiar to Australia,
however, and has happened everywhere else where the same careless
policy has been pursued. We have, then, a grain of comfort from the
fact that it is not confined to us. In our own case the Fisheries
Commissioners have repeatedly called attention to the need for certain
legislative reform in connection with our oysteries. They assert, in
fact, that "it is absolutely imperative that our oyster beds and
deposits must be regulated on quite a different system to that which
obtains under the existing law."

Mr. Saville Kent, who has been investigating the cause of failure in
connection with the oyster fisheries of Victoria, not so long ago, has
made some interesting recommendations. The principle of his system is
to establish on selected spots, in the neighbourhood of the formerly
most productive natural oyster grounds, small Government reserves,
whereon stocks of oysters shall be laid down and carefully
cultivated for breeding purposes. He points out that the capacity of
oysters for breeding is greatly augmented when they are collected
together in a small space, in comparison with that of equal numbers
thinly scattered over my extensive area. Each reserve in this way
constitutes a prolific breeding centre for stocking the surrounding
waters, and by this means alone the process of restoring the natural
beds is quickly accelerated.

Indeed, he is particularly careful to draw attention to the fact that
in the previously attempted establishment of artificial oyster
fisheries a prominent error was in working too large areas. One or two
acres intelligently cultivated can be made to produce far more
substantial results than a very large area under inefficient
management, and at much less expenditure of time and money. A vast
amount of money has been expended in different localities on the
Victorian coast for the purpose of developing the oyster fisheries. In
the great majority of cases, however, the site selected was unsuitable
for such a purpose, and the mode of culture adopted impracticable and
inefficient. For instance, one place was the recipient of a vast amount
of sedimentary deposits. Here he found that they had surrounded the
chosen areas with fences of great height and strength, and closely
wattled, for the purpose of catching and retaining the young oyster
brood. Instead of this, however, they had simply acted as "catch-pits,"
which had accumulated soft oozy mud to the depth of several feet, and a
few dead oyster shells were the only result.

Instead of such an evident failure as this, he recommends oyster-spat
collectors of two kinds, one consisting of extra thick split palings 4
ft. long by 8 in. wide, with a brick attached to each end to weigh them
down, and at the same time to raise them off the ground. Several of
them on being raised for inspection, after three months, were found to
have over 1,000 embryo oysters adhering to them. The other form
of spat collector he employs consists of cemented slates, arranged
ridge-wise on light ti-tree frames, and in some localities these were
found to be even more efficacious than the palings.

In the old country the same necessity for oyster culture is well
recognised. In an interesting address given not so long ago, Professor
Huxley, after referring to the growing scarcity of the bivalve,
expressed his belief that the only hope for the oyster consumer was
first in oyster culture, and secondly in discovering a means of
breeding oysters under such conditions that all the spat was safely
deposited. France has done more than any other country in the world in
the artificial culture of the oyster. Not many years ago the oyster
fisheries there were in danger of absolute extinction--a state of
affairs brought about by reckless and unrestricted fishing, without any
effort to provide for a re-supply. Mainly through the efforts of M.
Coste, the propagation of oysters was scientifically carried out, with
a result that has even exceeded the marvellous. According to a recent
French official report, the Bay of Arcachon contained in the year 1807,
20 private PARCS, or district oyster beds. In the year 1865 these had
increased to the number of 297, with an output of 10,000,000 oysters.
In the year 1887, the area under cultivation in the same bay amounted
to 15,000 acres, and produced 300,000,000 oysters. In addition to this,
a still later report attributes the present flourishing condition of
this industry "to the steps primarily initiated by the Government, and
to the necessity of upholding this success by continuing the same
system of administrative supervision, together with the practical
illustration in the Government model PARCS of the most perfected
methods of oyster culture, for the benefit of private cultivators."

And lastly, if we require further evidence in support of the
necessity for ostreiculture, we have only to turn to America. A falling
off in the supply led to an inquiry into the cause by the United States
Fish Commission. Professor Goode, in his review of the work
accomplished by this body, writes, INTER ALIA:--"The important
distinction between the extermination of a species and the destruction
of a fishery should be noted. In the case of fixed animals like the
sponge, the mussel, and the oyster, the colonies or beds may be
practically exterminated, exactly as a forest may be cut down. The
preservation of the oyster beds is a matter of vital importance to the
United States, for oyster fishing unsupported by oyster culture will,
within a short period, destroy the employment of tens of thousands, and
the cheap and favourite food of tens of millions." "Something," the
professor proceeds to say, "may be effected by laws which allow each
oyster bed to rest for a period of years after each season of fishing
upon it. It is the general belief, however, that shell-fish beds must
be cultivated as carefully as garden beds, and that this can only be
done by leasing them to individuals. It is probable that the present
unregulated methods will prevail until the dredging of the natural beds
ceases to be remunerative, and that the oyster industry will then be
transferred from the improvident fisherman to the care-taking
oyster-culturists." We are thus led to the inevitable conclusion that if
our Australian oyster fisheries are to be re-created, it will be necessary
to follow in the same lines. With that object in view, therefore, it
will be needful to devise suitable legislative enactments to protect
our oyster fisheries and to foster ostreiculture at the same time. We
must benefit, in short, by the experience derived from other parts of
the world where ostreiculture has been carried to a state of absolute
perfection.