Aug 21, 2008 7:58 am US/Eastern
Oyster Beds Shut Down After Recent Illness
PORT NORRIS, N.J. (CBS 3) ―
Dozens of people who fish the bays in the New Jersey have been put out of work after recent reports of sickness have been linked to bacteria commonly found in oysters.
The seagulls are all you'll hear for now along the Maurice River in Port Norris, Cumberland County. The area usually bustling with business was shut down Tuesday night as a mandatory precaution.
"If there are incidents of sickness, they have to take certain steps and that's what they did and we understand that," said Steve Fleetwood of Bivalve Packing.
Nearly 80-percent of the oyster beds in the Delaware Bay had to be shut down by the state, while officials work to track the source of the bacteria known as vibro parahaemolyticus.
The simple precautionary procedure has forced many people who rely on the oyster business out of work.
"There's never a good time for this to happen," said Fleetwood who typically has five boats out fishing this time of year.
The oyster harvest, which isn't prominent in other parts of the country, has been described as a "little niche" for the fishermen who work the Delaware Bay and without the industry many of them are at a loss.
"Just wondering what we're going to do the next day to make another dollar," said Dave Berry, a concerned fisherman who works on the only Fleetwood boat in the water.
The only fishing the oyster boats are allowed to do at this time is limited to a very secluded and not heavily area outside of the restricted zone. If the halt on oyster fishing in the bay continues, there will not be anymore oyster in the area to purse, further damaging the industry.
Because oysters thrive in cold water and are packaged in cold climates, fisherman like Fleetwood are skeptical that that the source of the bacteria isn't the oyster in a particular area, but rather a bad batch that were left out in a warm climate.
(© MMX, CBS Broadcasting Inc. All Rights Reserved.)
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