#Captain tom oyster spat for sale full#

All of a sudden, the off-bottom oyster farming industry in Florida started taking off, with industrious would-be farmers jumping into the bivalve business all across Florida’s west coast, in particular around Cedar Key and Panacea.īrian Rosegger, an environmental science major who spent four years studying oyster populations in the Gulf of Mexico after the Deepwater Horizon spill, was already familiar with the industry.

#Captain tom oyster spat for sale full#

The same year, the state altered the existing regulations to allow full water column leases for aquaculture operation. The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration declared a fishery disaster on the bay, caused in part by decades of over-harvesting and saltwater intrusion. In 2013, Florida’s wild oyster population was in dire straits - in particular the Apalachicola Bay region, which at one time provided 90 percent of the state’s oysters and 10 percent of the country’s. The oysters are sorted by size before getting placed back in the cages. With Apalachicola oysters off the table for the foreseeable future, many have predicted that aquaculture operations like the Roseggers' could be an indication of booming business in years to come. Petersburg’s Alto Mare and Urban Stillhouse, Clearwater’s Bascom’s Chop House and Tampa’s Ulele.Įarlier this year, Florida’s Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission announced it was shutting down the wild oyster harvest in Apalachicola Bay for as long as five years in an attempt to save the quintessential Florida ecosystem. Touting the LoCos as the “new and improved Gulf oyster,” the name has already attracted a good deal of buzz, grabbing the attention of several high-caliber restaurants across the Tampa Bay area, including St.

A few years ago they began hatching a plan for Lost Coast Oyster Co., and in September, their briny bivalves, called LoCos, finally hit the market. Brian Rosegger drains floating oyster cages, also called bags, while harvesting oysters at his farm in Tampa Bay.Īfter visiting off-bottom oyster operations in Cedar Key, the Roseggers were inspired to start an oyster farm of their own near their home in St.