Tag Archives: oysters

Cracking the Case of the Vanishing Oyster Larvae

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Olympic Peninsula, WA

July 28-August 1, 2013

Algae grown in these tanks will feed oyster larvae at Taylor Shellfish's hatchery

Algae grown in these tanks will feed oyster larvae at Taylor Shellfish’s hatchery

The algae tanks that line the walls of Taylor Shellfish Farms hatchery in Quilcene, Washington are varying shades of emerald greens and beer-like browns. Each one holds a different gourmet meal for oyster larvae. The chief hatchery scientist, Benoit Eudeline, weaves through the tanks looking relieved.

“These look good,” he says. “We’ve been having some trouble growing algae lately. If it’s not problems with the larvae it’s always something else.”

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Queen Quet, Unedited

9 July 2013

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Saint Helena Island, South Carolina

June 22, 2013

The Gullah/Geechee people, descendants of enslaved Africans captured in Angola and other parts of the Western Seaboard of Africa who now stretch from Jacksonville, North Carolina to Jacksonville, Florida, do not have a word for “adaptation” or “resiliency” in their Creole language. And yet, as Queen Quet, the elected head-of-state for the Gullah/Geechee, explains in the (unedited) clip above, the Gullah/Geechee are an incredibly resilient people: they maintained their culture through slavery and today continue traditional farming practices on family compounds.

“What we understand, or overstand as I like to say—that’s what others call adapting,” Queen Quet said. “We call it living.”

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