Oyster Farming
Accepting the suggestion of a friend to talk to scientists running new experiments, he was able to overcome challenges to his career caused by storms and pollution, resulting in learning an innovative, sustainable, and much tastier way to bring tasty seafood to the public.
FAMILY BACKGROUND
Jules Melancon (JM) was born in Cut Off, Louisiana, a bayou community about 25 miles south of New Orleans. His father harvested oysters; his mother was a homemaker. Neither parent attended college nor suggested to JM that he pursue formal education beyond high school.
CHILDHOOD
JM grew up bilingual (speaking two languages): English in school plus Cajun French at home as part of a vibrant, tightknit community whose distinctive customs and language would fade over time.
EDUCATION
Following his high school graduation, JM enrolled at Nicholls State University and then transferred to Delgado Community College, both in Louisiana. He left formal education before graduating.
FIRST JOB IS NEVER A BINDING CAREER COMMITMENT
While attending college, JM worked on his father’s oyster boat part-time, but he decided to “try something else” so he worked on a Shell oil rig, miles out at sea within the Gulf of Mexico, just as the domestic oil production boom was beginning. Working hard to learn the business, JM’s dedication was soon recognized by his supervisors – by age 25, he was managing multiple ocean drilling rigs. But lax safety standards and constant exposure to toxic chemicals drove JM away from working on oil rigs, back to his father’s oyster boat.
EARLY CAREER FARMING OYSTERS
JM spent most of his oyster farming career the old-fashioned way, working a dredge across the bottom of the shallow, brackish waters of the lower Mississippi River Delta. He captained his own 65-foot steel-bottom boat, returning every evening low in the water, under the weight of the day’s catch.
It was backbreaking work. In his prime, JM would lug two 120-pound sacks of oysters onto a truck. But it was lucrative, too: He’d sell 400 of those bags in a day, at up to $15 a bag, to canneries and wholesalers that shipped worldwide.
CHALLENGES FOR ANY OUTDOOR CAREER INCLUDE WEATHER AND POLLUTION
The good days didn’t last. By the end of the 1990s, rising sea levels, pollution and shore erosion were driving down the oyster population and making the fragile environmental region vulnerable to storm damage.
In late August 2005, one of the historically worst hurricanes, named (by the National Weather Service) “Katrina” – a Category 5 storm, hit Louisiana, particularly the city of New Orleans, causing 1,836 fatalities and damage estimated between $97 and $145 billion. Winds were recorded at 175 miles per hour.
Katrina had a significantly negative impact on the oyster farming industry, leading to an estimated loss of 2/3s of the oysters in the area farmed by JM.
If the hurricane was not enough to drive oyster farmers to a different career, a major oil spill (from the Deepwater Horizon rig in the Gulf of Mexico) in 2010 – coating the Louisiana coast in millions of gallons of crude oil – was the final blow to the industry.
NEW IDEA TO RESUME THE SAME CAREER
Still young enough to find a new job on land, JM was on the brink of quitting oyster farming altogether when a friend who owned one of the Gulf Coast’s biggest seafood wholesalers, told him about a new type of oyster farming being tested by Auburn University researchers near Mobile, Alabama.
Instead of dredging, oyster farmers grew “spats” – immature oysters, from pinhead-size seeds, in drums on land. When the oysters were the size of a quarter coin, they were moved into chicken-wire cages suspended in shallow water.
Wild oysters might take five years to reach full size; with this new approach, exposing the miniscule size seeds to a rich flow of nutrients, they needed less than 10 months to mature into full size. And they were (by wide agreement among all involved) perfect: big and meaty, with handsome shells that looked perfect when spread out on a raw bar.
“There’s a greater level of care and tending,” noted the leader of the Auburn program. “It’s more equivalent to a microbrew.”
In 2014, JM received Louisiana’s first alternative oyster culture license. Soon he was trucking the oysters directly to famed New Orleans restaurants. They were a hit with both the restaurant buyers and the ultimate consumers.
CAREER SATISFACTION
While JM never achieved great wealth by adopting newly scientific ways of farming oysters, he was able to continue supporting himself and his family financially while earning professional respect.
“When you meet somebody that tries to be the best at what they do, I don’t care if he’s a ditch digger,” said the friend who recommended that JM talk to scientists before quitting his career. “There’s a certain aura about people who want to be the best.”
“The best part about oystering,” said JM, “was about being free. When I go farming (in the old-fashioned way), the peace and tranquility in the morning, seeing the sun rise – was the best.”
While JM had to give up the hard work of dredging for oysters, his willingness to try a new way is credited by many for permitting the changed industry to survive.
Editor’s note – Science can often lead the way to better business procedures plus a personal career bringing both individual satisfaction and an improved condition for everyone else.
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This career story is based on several sources, including an obituary written by Clay Risen, published by The New York Times on September 18, 2023 plus internet research involving Wikipedia.
