Florida conservation effort helps restore oysters and their ecosystem

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Crabs

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It is true.  I have crabs.  Blue Crabs. Stone Crabs.  Some are as small as a lentil seed.  And the ones I found this weekend, hunkered down in my diploid oyster baskets were 5inches or more when they were flailing their claws at me.  They managed to eat enough of my oysters to grow to that enormous size inside the basket.  They bullied out all the other crabs so they could have it all to themselves.  One crab per basket. So what kind of life is that for a crab?  They have a bounty of food - until they consume it all. They are protected from crab eating predators. They are alone.  No mating if they've pushed all the other crabs out. And how do they survive the 24 hours the baskets are lifted to de-foul every week?  As I opened each basket and dumped the contents into a bin, the crab would scurry to a corner, claws spread wide ready to attack.   I would flip it into the water after giving...
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Gucci on the water

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We were flying across the water - following a fellow oyster farmer who was in a tunnel bottom boat with a Jack Plate.  We were both racing to the oyster leases to catch the low tide before it began to rise.  Then he almost got stuck in that magical boat that seems to only need a coating of water over the Bay's muddy bottom.  And he raced on leaving us stuck. Seriously stuck.  We exited Ginny, my 19' Carolina Skiff, and sank knee deep into the mud.  We tried to push, pull, then rested. It was impossible.  Only more water would be of help.  And then, I decided to fiddle with the Lowrance which had again given me fits.  I took off my prescription polarized Gucci sunglasses and put them on my head.  A habitual action, but I had my warm hat on so they really didn't hug my head as they normally do.  And then, it happened.  I leaned over to look at the water depth and they fell into the water.  It was only 8 inches,...
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Amber Alert - my babies are gone!

It was Saturday, April 2, 2016.  Michael and I were on the water for the first time since Matt Hodges and I had readied 1350 oysters for market on Monday, March 28.  Matt and I had also moved my remaining 42 baskets from the Wakulla Environmental Institute's Research and Education Lease to my lease in Oyster Bay.  It had been a long day and a hard day of work on that Monday with Matt.  I felt good about all we had accomplished.  I was happy to have all my oysters in one place.  That following Thursday, Matt picked up the 1350 and took them to WEI - a donation for a Chamber of Commerce event that would be held on Sat April 2.  They wanted my oysters as they were large, beautiful, perfect.  Michael and I tended to sorting and starting my system for organizing now everything was in one place - and then we noticed that 2 of the 6 mm baskets holding my new spat, the O'Malley's as I had named them as they had been delivered on St Pa...
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