Consider the oyster

Tomorrow night, shuck up!

Mississippi-Alabama Sea Grant

A year ago, on a trip to Apalachicola, I asked at an oyster bar about the provenance of the bivalves. I don’t remember the precise reply, but it was something like, I dunno—Texas, maybe?

This in one of the world’s foremost oyster capitals, the town that once dominated Florida’s industry! Apalachicola Bay has been closed since 2020 so of course the oysters were not local. Still, I’d hope that in this town, at least, everyone would be attuned to their seafood provenance.

I’ve been working on a cycle of stories about the grim state of the seafood industry along what the rest of the world knows as Gulf of Mexico,¹ and one of the outcomes I fear is most likely is what you might call “the simulacrum”: Every coastal town will be serving the same ingredients they always have, with none of it is harvested locally. Certainly we’re well on the way there with shrimp. The causes are various, but for oysters, at least, there are concerns across every Gulf state.

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So I was stoked when my friend Troy Gilbert told me about Oyster Night: a New Orleans citywide celebration of the oyster, to be held in conjunction with the Super Bowl. And it’s more than just a celebration: the shells will be collected to contribute to a reef-building project that will help protect our fraying delta.

I’ll be further east along the coast this week, in Mississippi, but to me, that’s no matter: I’ll do my part by enjoying a local oyster, sustaining an industry that sustains the coast.

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A quick request: your nature adventure photos, please

I’m starting to do some of the initial design and brand work for the print magazine, and I’ll soon be launching a pre-sale campaign. But for that I need imagery—to include in a teaser video and/or use on Instagram. If you have imagery of Southern nature, and ideally images of people doing cool stuff in nature—fishing, biking, hunting, backpacking—that you’d be willing to let me use, please send ‘em my way.

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Southlander Spotlight

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I love it whenever national outdoor media turns their attention to the South. And this week, the podcast Dirtbag Diaries delivers a great West Virginia story: a profile of Corey Lilly, an unlikely ski pro turned W.V. public lands advocate. Go check out his “rad stuff” on Instagram.

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In season

>>> A hundred years ago this week, a prominent Kentucky caver got stuck underground—a tragedy that became one of the nation’s biggest news stories. That media sensation later led to the creation of Mammoth Cave National Park.

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The lowdown

>>> Elon Musk’s meddling is “sowing chaos” within the National Park Service, Wes Siler reports.

1. I’ve been contemplating a new book idea: Gulf of America: Notes from the Edge. Just a title for now… Though I appreciate this suggestion that rather than that new and insecure appellation, let’s call it “The Sea of Storms.”