Oyster Industry in Port Stephens in the Nineteenth Century

 

Extensive oyster reefs were present on the beds of most NSW and southern Queensland estuaries at the time of European arrival. The oysters were found both as dredge oysters, which were oysters found two feet below low water mark or bank oysters which were oyster beds occurring in the intertidal zone between high and low water marks. Oyster beds in the estuaries were individually identified and named during the mid nineteenth century, usually in reference to geographical location. Examples in Port Stephens were the Corrie Island, peach tree, middle, Deep creek, mussel and Connor beds.

 

The massive oyster populations exploited from many of the NSW estuaries from the 1850s-1870s resulted in drastic declines in oyster populations within estuaries in a practice referred to by oyster dredgers as skinning. In shallow (< 2 metres) areas, the shell beds underlying the live oyster reefs were even excavated for lime production.  Whole rivers were leased by individuals, often Sydney merchants, who contracted labour to undertake the harvest.  Oysters were usually shipped live in sacks on the decks of steamboats plying Australian coastal waters. 

 

The manner in which this dredge fishery is performed elsewhere in the world has been particularly destructive for oyster reef habitat.  With the exception of hand harvesting on intertidal reefs, the harvesting practices are analogous to strip mining, breaking off pieces of the reef and removing all size classes of oysters. Concerns were raised about the sustainability of these fishing practices and consequently the Governor of the Colony of NSW established a Royal Commission (Oyster Culture Commission, 1877).  Its purpose was to inquire into the best mode of cultivating the oyster, of improving and maintaining the natural oyster beds of the colony, and also as to the legislation necessary to carry out these objects.

 

 

The statement to the Commission in 1877, of oyster dredgers constantly employed on Port Stephens Fishery, from its opening in 1862 until April 1877, exemplifies the extent of the oyster reefs at the time of commencement of European exploitation.

 

STATEMENT

 

Distribution of oyster reefs

A line from Myall Creek to Nelson Bay marks the eastern limit of payable ground.  On both north and south shores westward; around shore and bank; off all rocky islets; a little up some creeks and to the head of navigation in others bankers abounded and dredge oysters on numerous beds from Goat Island to head of Karuah.  All the ground west of Schnapper Island may be said to be one vast oyster-bed, for clumps of oysters are found everywhere, both in deep and shallow water.

 

Measure of catch

In the early part of that time, ten and even fifteen bags (1 bag = 100 dozen oysters = 60 kg) of dredge or bank oysters were got in five or six hours by one man. Often more than twenty boats were working. Captain Banks supplied Sydney and Newcastle limekilns with live oysters.  He laid his schooner on the soft bank, raked together the oysters, and completed the loading in her own length around; and in those times we got ten bagfuls in a length of a boat.

 

Present state of banks

The banks formerly densely covered, are quite bare, not a thing on them to fix spawn, save the whelks on beds they affect, which often fix spawn, as soon as marketable is taken, whelk and oyster together. The extensive and very prolific natural beds occupying the whole of Corrie Creek and surrounding banks to west and south are totally abandoned to shell-getters, who are turning over its surface to procure a layer of shell from 6 inches to 2 feet thick under 1 or 2 feet of muddy sand.  The bed is rapidly being destroyed for oyster breeding, which for that purpose would be 100 times more value to the country than any value realised from shell-getting.

 

Use of shell in culture

If dry bank-shell were strewn on banks or underwater beds at time of spawning, being clean, spawn would as certainly fix thereon as on stone or any other substance accidentally thrown on banks; therefore ought to be conserved for use of fishery before it is too late.  But at present Church and School Department, A.A. Company, and Government alike, are disposing of them (for lime production) as fast as possible.

 

Evidence of productiveness

The whole fishery is quite capable, if in fair condition of producing 30,000 bags yearly, with the least injuring its breeding stock.

 

 

Figure 1.  Extent of extinct natural oyster shell beds in lower Port Stephens estuary overlayed with bathymetry (after Roy, 1984). Shell beds in shallow (<2 metres) areas such as at Corrie Island were completely excavated for lime production  (Oyster Culture Commission, 1877).  Today, oysters are not found anywhere below the low tide level in Port Stephens and other NSW estuaries because of mudworm