On Thursday before dawn, about 50 people from oyster fishing families piled into charter buses in Galveston, Port Lavaca, and Seadrift, then drove to the headquarters of the Texas Parks and Wildlife Department in Austin to protest at a meeting of the agency’s commissioners. There, they held signs and chanted in English and Spanish: “Open the bays!,” “Justicia!,” and “We want to work!”
The Parks and Wildlife Commission was set to vote on prohibiting oyster harvesting in a chunk of Ayres, Carlos, and Mesquite Bays near the Gulf Coast town of Rockport, making the area a wildlife sanctuary. After listening to hours of contentious public testimony for and against the proposal, the commissioners ultimately postponed their vote. Chairman Arch “Beaver” Aplin, who’s also the CEO of Buc-ee’s, called for a task force including both conservationists and industry representatives to further study the issue.
“This is not kicking the can down the road,” Alpin said. “We need to get it right.”
