Oyster coast : a sense of place and change by the half-shell

The oyster has been a part of our diet for as long as we’ve settled where our rivers meet the sea — essentially as long as history has been recorded. Today, the Texas oyster fishery is a giant of an aquaculture industry with a lot of shifting gears. Particularly on Galveston Bay, where most of Texas’s oysters are harvested, recent environmental catastrophes, i.e. Hurricanes Ike and Harvey, as well as long-term effects of climate change have left a considerable impact on the region’s oyster supply that has kept commercial oysterman constantly adapting to meet market demand. In this report, I profile the oyster to give a glimpse into an aquaculture industry, a culinary tradition and the ever-changing Texas Gulf Coast where it all takes place. I discuss a bit of the history and processes of oyster cultivating and harvesting, as well as the politics of regulation by Texas Parks and Wildlife Department on the oyster reefs to look over the fragile natural resource. This piece is also accompanied by photographs and an audiovisual element.