How Hurricanes Could Mess Up Your Favorite Seafood Delicacy

Oysters Are More Than Just A Delicacy

You might not have thought about it, but oyster farmers are constantly watching the forecast, especially during hurricane season.

“If there's any sign that it's going to impact us at all, about a week out, we'll start making plans... Some hurricanes, the storm prep is a lot more intense, and it can take 4 or 5 days of planning and prep time to be ready,” explained Matt Schwab, co-owner and founder of Hold Fast Oyster Co. in Sneads Ferry, North Carolina.

Even so-called “fish storms” that are nowhere near the coast can cause problems, as I witnessed during our coverage of Hurricane Erin when I went out on the boat with Schwab and two members of his team.

Hurricane Erin caused large swells that sent water levels rising two to three feet above normal, causing minor flooding for Hold Fast’s facility on the shore of the New River, even during low tide.

And then there are the actual oyster farms, which are out in the river itself, facing a whole host of environmental threats.

Struggles Of Aquaculture

The trouble with oyster farming is that it’s done in an open environment. In the case of the farm that I visited, the farm is set up in the New River near Sneads Ferry, North Carolina, less than a mile from the mouth of the river and the Atlantic Ocean.

That means the farm is susceptible to influence from the ocean and from farther upriver and relies on a careful balance between fresh and saltwater.

“So seawater is about 35 parts per thousand salinity. Right here, where we are, it's about 30 to 32 parts per thousand salinity. And if the water salinity drops too quickly, it stresses them,” explained Schwab. “And if it's too much, too soon, it will stress them to the point where they’ll all die.

A major cause of sudden drops in salinity can be major storms (like hurricanes), which can drop an immense amount of freshwater all at once.

A major recent example of this was in 2019 with the landfall of Hurricane Dorian. More than a foot of rain was recorded at a weather station nearby, and Schwab said that the effect on the oysters was catastrophic.

“The salinity dropped from the mid-20s to 2 or 3 in a day, and everything died. It was basically freshwater,” Schwab recalled.

But the threat of weather doesn’t just come by air; it also comes by sea in the form of storm surge.

When hurricanes and large coastal systems push water towards the coast, water levels temporarily rise in marine ecosystems. For oyster farming systems like the ones that Hold Fast Oyster Co. uses, this can put large amounts of stress on the lines anchoring the floats.

Too much stress can cause the pins to pull out from the floats, and entire oyster farms can be lost to the waves.

These hollow floats can be sunk ahead of storms, though, but the process of sinking them and then retrieving them from the mud is arduous and time-consuming.

And even at the bottom, the oysters are not immune to the hazards of hurricanes.

“During Hurricane Florence, I used only bottom cages. So the gear that I had, they sat on the bottom. They didn't float like this. And during Hurricane Florence, the wind and the storm surge was so bad that it actually flipped the cages over and completely buried them in mud… and I just couldn't even dig them out,” said Schwab.

More Than Just A Delicacy

It can be easy to dismiss oysters as a concern during hurricanes for a lot of reasons, but the tiny little creatures are more than just a delicacy.

Oysters are a keystone species of their ecosystems, which means many other species depend on them for survival. Oysters are filter feeders, so in the process of feeding, they remove compounds that contain nitrogen and other particulate matter, which makes water clearer and allows more sunlight to reach seagrasses at the seafloor.

Oysters also act as stabilizers for the shoreline, mitigating erosion from coastal storms and runoff.

And even if you don’t like oysters, one thing can’t be denied: oysters are good for you.

“Oysters have the highest zinc content of any animal or plant product. They're incredibly healthy and nutrient dense. They're not just good for the environment. They're good for us too, high in protein, high in omega threes, high in selenium, zinc, all kinds of micronutrients,” explained Schwab.

“Oysters are a superfood, in other words.”

Sara Tonks is a content meteorologist with weather.com and has a bachelor’s and a master’s degree from Georgia Tech in Earth and Atmospheric Sciences along with a master’s degree from Unity Environmental University in Marine Science.