POMS in Australia

[RT Firefly]

Greetings,
Mass oyster deaths frighten growers | Newcastle Herald
Can any of our southern hemisphere members comment on this please? Is this an isolated incident or Fukushima or El Nina related? Being so far removed here in NA it's difficult to interpret news reports.
Thanks.

 

[RickB]

One of the problems with aquaculture that has been predicted for years ... too many organisms too close together for too long in an unnatural environment.

Nature's way of thinning the herd. Too bad it had to be a bunch of weeters.

 

[Andy G]

At this stage it appears to a local story only, nothing in the national newspapers that I have seen.

By the way the term 'POMS' or 'POMMY is a nick name used in Australia when referring to the English. It is especially used in any sporting context.Sometime when when our team is beaten, or when we perceive that they have used unfair methods to win, we affix the term 'bastard'by way of a descriptor, as in 'Pommy Bastard'.It is worth remembering that the term 'bastard' in the Oz vernacular has many meaning, not all derogatory, but that's another story.

I suppose now we could call them 'Dead Oysters' instead.

 

[RT Firefly]

Greetings,
Mr. G. THAT would be an insult to the oyster.

 

[BruceK]

Some years ago, the extensively farmed smaller but delicious Sydney Rock oyster was devastated by disease, growers started farming the much larger Pacific oyster. Now it has been devastated, back to the Sydney Rock.
The life of an oyster farmer is not easy. In the past sewage escapes in times of flood, have been a culprit, but this seems different, while mysterious. I don`t think we can blame the failed Pommy cricketers, much as I`d like to.

 

[AusCan]

Yes - this is a big problem with raising a monoculture, not only in the marine environment.

In North America, the "forests" which have been replanted with a single pine species are suffering similar consequences.

We think we can do improve the productivity of old mother nature, but we still have a lot to learn.

 

[Peter B]

The one thing I doubt has any association with it whatsoever, is that it is somehow a result of the leaky nuclear reactor in Fukushima. Many years ago there was an oyster 'virus' that for a time decimated the much-vaunted Bluff Oysters out of Foveaux Strait - that's the one between the bottom of the South Island of NZ and Stewart Island 20 miles South of it. However, over time they recovered. I suspect this is a similar case. In the end some survive - resistance developed, and they go their merry way again. Of course if you are trying to make you living out of it when this happens that is not good.

FOVEAUX STRAIT – Te Ara Encyclopedia of New Zealand