Oysters can be found in waters from Alabama down through much of Florida. | Ben Sterns via Unsplash
Published on April 28, 2025 at 11:07 am
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You might know them as just a seafood delicacy, but oysters are a pillar of Florida’s aquatic ecology. This week, anyone with an interest in catching or eating the mollusks is invited to learn more about the regulations surrounding oyster harvesting at a workshop in St. Augustine.
While nearly all of Florida’s oysters have historically come from the Apalachicola Bay, St. Johns County is one of the state’s hotspots for wild oyster harvesting outside of the Florida Panhandle.
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The Apalachicola Bay’s oyster population had been in decline for years, and in 2020 the state issued a moratorium for all oyster harvesting. The goal was to allow the bay’s once-flourishing oyster population to recover.
With that moratorium set to expire in 2026, Florida’s Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission is traveling the state to talk about the existing regulations that govern oyster harvesting and how they might change.
FWC Section Leader Erika Burgess says Florida has not been immune to the global decline in oyster populations due to overharvesting, pollution and other factors.
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“We’ve lost between 80 and 90% of our oysters in most of our systems,” Burgess tells Jacksonville Today. “So the regulations that we have in place now were established mainly in the late ‘90s and 2000s, and the status of the resources changed, so we’re looking to see if we should adjust our regulations to coincide with that.”
Oysters are especially important in Florida’s coastal ecosystems. The mollusks filter sediments out of water; their reefs provide habitats for other creatures; and they’re a seafood staple.
To determine whether the harvesting guidelines need to change, the state wants feedback from everyone: people who harvest oysters, people who eat them and people who enjoy the habitats they support.
FWC’s St. Augustine workshop will run from 6 to 8 p.m. Tuesday at St. Johns River State College, 2990 College Drive.
For anyone who can’t make the in-person workshop this week, two online workshops are coming up — on May 1 and June 1. A link will go live for those workshops on FWC’s workshop page before the events, and the workshops will be available on FWC’s Saltwater Fishing YouTube channel.
Anyone with questions about the workshops can contact FWC directly by email at Marine@MyFWC.com.
