{"id":5270,"date":"2012-01-30T12:26:35","date_gmt":"2012-01-30T18:26:35","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/texas\/?p=5270"},"modified":"2012-01-30T12:28:26","modified_gmt":"2012-01-30T18:28:26","slug":"how-the-texas-oyster-made-a-comeback","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/texas\/2012\/01\/30\/how-the-texas-oyster-made-a-comeback\/","title":{"rendered":"How the Texas Oyster Made a Comeback"},"content":{"rendered":"<div id=\"attachment_5179\"  class=\"wp-caption module image right\" style=\"max-width: 300px;\"><a class=\"fancybox\" title=\"After almost losing the entire season to drought, gulf oysters are back on the menu in Texas. \" href=\"http:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/texas\/files\/2012\/01\/1854640742_839526008c_z.jpg\" rel=\"\"><img decoding=\"async\" loading=\"lazy\" class=\"size-medium wp-image-5179\" title=\"1854640742_839526008c_z\" src=\"http:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/texas\/files\/2012\/01\/1854640742_839526008c_z-300x225.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"300\" height=\"225\" srcset=\"https:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/texas\/files\/2012\/01\/1854640742_839526008c_z-300x225.jpg 300w, https:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/texas\/files\/2012\/01\/1854640742_839526008c_z-620x465.jpg 620w, https:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/texas\/files\/2012\/01\/1854640742_839526008c_z-220x165.jpg 220w, https:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/texas\/files\/2012\/01\/1854640742_839526008c_z-138x103.jpg 138w, https:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/texas\/files\/2012\/01\/1854640742_839526008c_z.jpg 640w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 300px) 100vw, 300px\" \/><\/a><p class=\"wp-media-credit\">Photo by Flickr user Swamibu\/Creative Commons<\/p><p class=\"wp-caption-text\">After almost losing the entire season to drought, gulf oysters are back on the menu in Texas.<\/p><\/div>\n<p>Texas Gulf oysters are <a href=\"http:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/texas\/2012\/01\/26\/texas-gulf-oysters-are-back-on-the-menu-take-that-drought\/\">back on the menu<\/a>. In what could be the latest start ever for Texas oyster season, the bays of San Antonio and Espiritu Santu opened on midnight Thursday to oyster harvesting. Carol Huntsberger, who owns Quality Seafood Market in Central Austin with her husband, says the oysters should start showing up in markets within a week or two.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cTypically the oyster season opens in September,\u201d says Huntsberger. \u201cIn the last couple years, due to the drought and red tide, you know, it was pushed back. Last year I think it didn\u2019t open until November. So this is the latest I\u2019ve ever seen it\u00a0open.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Jim Gossen of <a href=\"http:\/\/www.louisianafoods.com\/\">Louisiana Foods<\/a>, a fish\u00a0purveyor in Galveston\u00a0(and astute\u00a0<a href=\"http:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/texas\/2012\/01\/06\/tiger-prawns-roar-into-the-gulf-of-mexico\/\">observer of the Asian Tiger Prawn<\/a>), sent out a <a href=\"http:\/\/www.edibleaustin.com\/content\/index.php\">news release<\/a> with even more good news for fans of Texas Gulf oysters:<\/p>\n<blockquote><p><strong>&#8220;<\/strong>It appears that, as of the end of last week, the Red Tide in Galveston Bay has officially dissipated, BUT this DOES NOT mean that waters are open, yet. <!--more-->No higher than acceptable readings were found anywhere in Galveston Bay last Thursday or Friday. So, TDSHS [Texas Department of State Health Services] has begun pulling oysters from around the bay in order to start testing the meats. TDSHS is hopeful that Galveston Bay will be open within the next two weeks.<\/p>\n<p>Looks like we are\u00a0<em>almost<\/em>\u00a0out of the woods.&#8221;<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<div class=\"related-content alignleft\"><h4 class=\"related-header\">Related<\/h4><div class=\"links\"><h5>Posts<\/h5><ul><li class=\"link\"><a href=\"http:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/texas\/2012\/01\/26\/texas-gulf-oysters-are-back-on-the-menu-take-that-drought\/\">Texas Gulf Oysters Are Back on the Menu. (Take That, Drought!)<\/a><\/li><li class=\"link\"><a href=\"http:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/texas\/2011\/12\/14\/things-we-lost-in-the-drought\/\">Things We Lost in the Drought<\/a><\/li><li class=\"link\"><a href=\"http:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/texas\/2012\/01\/20\/4-theories-on-how-tiger-prawns-ended-up-in-the-gulf-of-mexico\/\">4 Theories on How Tiger Prawns Ended Up in the Gulf of Mexico<\/a><\/li><li class=\"link\"><a href=\"http:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/texas\/2012\/01\/06\/tiger-prawns-roar-into-the-gulf-of-mexico\/\">Tiger Prawns Roar into the Gulf of Mexico<\/a><\/li><\/ul><\/div><div class=\"topics\"><h5>Topics<\/h5><p class=\"topic\"><img class=\"alignleft\" src=\"http:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/texas\/files\/2011\/11\/119835727-60x60.jpg\" height=\"60\" width=\"60\" \/><a href=\"http:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/texas\/topic\/drought\/\">Everything You Need to Know About the Texas Drought<\/a><\/p><\/div><\/div>\n<p>Gossen also writes that oysters from Lavaca Bay are being tested this week and it&#8217;s possible that bay could open soon.<\/p>\n<p>How did the oysters make such a comeback? The red tide caused by algae blooms was tied to the drought. Without fresh water coming into the Gulf, <a href=\"http:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/texas\/2011\/12\/14\/things-we-lost-in-the-drought\/\">those algae flourished<\/a>, and made the oysters unsafe to eat. But in the last few months, with <a href=\"http:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/texas\/2012\/01\/25\/rain-tornadoes-hail-no-the-drought-aint-over\/\">above-average rains coming down<\/a> and sending freshwater into the Gulf, the water there has essentially been refreshed, and now Texans can proudly get shuckin&#8217;.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Texas Gulf oysters are back on the menu. In what could be the latest start ever for Texas oyster season, the bays of San Antonio and Espiritu Santu opened on midnight Thursday to oyster harvesting. Carol Huntsberger, who owns Quality Seafood Market in Central Austin with her husband, says the oysters should start showing up [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":50,"featured_media":5179,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[58],"tags":[61,85],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/texas\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5270"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/texas\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/texas\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/texas\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/50"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/texas\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=5270"}],"version-history":[{"count":7,"href":"https:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/texas\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5270\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":5277,"href":"https:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/texas\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5270\/revisions\/5277"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/texas\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/5179"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/texas\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=5270"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/texas\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=5270"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/texas\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=5270"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}