70 REPORT OF COMMISSIONER OF FISH AND FISHERIES. 



THE NATURAL OYSTER-BEDS OF JEFFERSON PARISH. 



This parish includes within its limits the major part of Barataria 

 Bay, formerly a productive oyster region, but now exhausted. Several 

 days were spent in examining these waters, but with one exception not 

 a reef was found which was not extinct from an economic point of view 

 and fast approaching that condition biologically. The exception noted 

 is in Bayou des Islettes, where there are a few fine large oysters in a 

 hole 25 feet deep, where they can not be reached by the tongs of the 

 oystermen. The reefs are all in the southern half of the bay, the 

 northern half having never produced oysters within the recollection of 

 the inhabitants, probably owing to its low normal salinity. A large 

 area of marsh and swamp land drains into this bay and as its mouth is 

 almost closed by islands the influence of salt water from the Gulf of 

 Mexico is not sufficient to counteract the influx of fresh water in the 

 north. 



That this region was at one time an important one is evidenced by the 

 number of extinct reefs which are to be found, as well as by the testi- 

 mony of the inhabitants. None of these beds appear to have been very 

 extensive, and in this feature they resemble, in general, those in other 

 parts of the State, but their number makes the total area not incon- 

 siderable. It is not necessary to indicate the location of these reefs 

 other than to say that they are scattered through Camiuada Bay, Bay 

 Coquette, Tambour Bay, Bay Joyeuse, Bay des Islettes, Champagne 

 Bay, along the shores and islands of Grand Lake, which is the main 

 body of Barataria Bay, and in Cat Bay, or Bay Devise, as it is called 

 locally. All of these reefs are of the same character. They are for 

 the most part composed of dead oyster- shells, with occasionally a large 

 single oyster of fine flavor and shape. There is practically no young 

 growth, for which there appear two probable reasons — the dearth of 

 adult individuals to furnish the spawn and the absence of suitable 

 cultch for the attachment of the young. 



The dead shells are worm-eaten and corroded by the boring-sponge 

 and the clam-like Martesias. They are fast disappearing and passing 

 into solution, and with their disappearance there will pass practically 

 all that distinguishes the reefs from the surrounding bottom, thus 

 making more and more remote the possibility of the recuperation of 

 Barataria Bay as a natural oyster-ground. It took nature many years 

 to erect these reefs upon the soft and muddy bottoms of the bay, but 

 a few years suffice for their destruction. Already, in Champagne Bay 

 and elsewhere, the shells upon the surface of the mud have disappeared, 

 and the location of the old reef is marked only by the shells which have 

 sunk into the ooze or have been buried beneath the sediment deposited 

 by the water. Iu the section of the report dealing with matters relat- 

 ing to oyster-planting there is pointed out a method of utilizing these 

 extinct reefs. 



The cause of the destruction of these reefs appears to have been 

 overfishing in some form or other, more probably that species of improvi- 



