A truck dumps another 10,000 dead oysters onto a mountain of roughly six million shells near the Hope River at Raspberry Point Oyster Co.Vanessa Tignanelli/The Globe and Mail
In better days, the Raspberry Point Oysters processing plant smells like a freshly shucked oyster – clean, salty and reminiscent of the sea. Now, on a May afternoon, as workers dump thousands of pearly shellfish on a conveyor belt near Cavendish, PEI, the stench is rank, a hot-summer-day-in-the-barn smell. The dead oysters are scooped by hand off the conveyor belt and deposited on a growing heap, with some to be deposited in the sea to help restore oyster beds.
Two diseases, Dermo and Multinucleate sphere unknown, or MSX, have decimated crops this year in western PEI, killing nearly all the oysters and devastating an industry worth $27-million. Neither Dermo nor MSX have an impact on food safety or human health, according to the Canadian Food Inspection Agency.
It’s a crisis the industry knew would eventually hit hard, after deadly MSX was discovered in PEI and New Brunswick nearly two years ago. MSX kills 95 per cent of oysters within two to three years of infection – and the industry is feeling the full impact, leaving many farmers and fishermen with fewer oysters to sell, and in some cases none at all for the next few years.
On the western side of PEI, where 60 to 70 per cent of the province’s oysters are grown, some farmers are pulling up their cages from the sea to find nearly all of their oysters dead, in some cases all of the meat hanging out of the shells, Prince Edward Island Aquaculture Alliance executive director Peter Warris said. He describes the smell as rotten and sulphuric.
Sean MacDonald, assistant of oyster care at Raspberry Point Oyster Co., inspects oysters hauled from the bottom of New London Bay onto a barge. MSX kills 95 per cent of oysters within two to three years of infection.Vanessa Tignanelli/The Globe and Mail
“It’s pretty devastating,” he said.
“There’s no product available for this year. There’ll be no product available for next year, and there’s no product available for the year after that because it’s a three-year growth cycle.”
PEI is the largest oyster producer in Eastern Canada and the second-largest oyster producer in Canada, according to the province.
Warming winter temperatures because of climate change may be a factor in the proliferation of MSX in Canada, which was first detected in 2002 in the Bras d’Or Lakes area of Cape Breton, N.S., according to PEI government monitoring reports. The prevalence of MSX is influenced by water temperature and salinity, and is suppressed by low levels of both.
Inside the plant at Raspberry Point, as workers picked through oysters on the conveyor belt, only about 10 to 15 per cent were found alive, said general manager James Power. Another day it was 40 per cent. Mr. Power said sorting through the dead oysters is more labour intensive than usual, so he had to hire additional staff.
Workers at Raspberry Point Oyster Co. Bayview processing plant sort through dead oysters.Vanessa Tignanelli/The Globe and Mail
Mr. Power said it’s a difficult time for oyster farms and fishermen on the island, but nobody is giving up on the industry. “I think there’s a pathway out,” he said. “You know, there’s some tough years coming, but we’re going to make it through, and we’re going to get back to where we were.”
That path forward involves following a plan that has worked for oyster industries that have been stricken by the parasite in the United States.
On PEI, the plan is to import MSX-resistant brood stock (or oysters kept in hatcheries specifically for breeding) from the U.S. to grow disease-resistant oysters, and purchase disease-resistant oyster seed, both of which the Canadian Food Inspection Agency recently approved for the aquaculture industry in the Atlantic Region.
Raspberry Point, a key player in the industry, grows, buys, processes and sells oysters. To strengthen its position, it is building a hatchery in the hope of creating its own disease-resistant oyster seed for its own farms and to sell to other farmers and the wild fishery, Mr. Power said.
Meanwhile, some farmers and processors, such as Cascumpec Bay Oyster Co., have little to nothing to sell this year.
Travis Whitehead, line manager at Raspberry Point Oyster Co., sorts through trays of 100 oysters at the Bayview processing plant. Growers across PEI face catastrophic losses linked to the MSX and Dermo diseases.Vanessa Tignanelli/The Globe and Mail
“There’s some,” said Martin O’Brien, the company’s owner and president. “I have a little bit to sell locally, but by and large it’s too high a mortality to be bothered with trying to salvage for this season.”
Mr. O’Brien started farming oysters with his parents and sister nearly two decades ago. When MSX was confirmed on the island in July, 2024, he said it was difficult to accept. But he already had a plan in the works to diversify: purchasing an industrial smoker to make smoked seafood products and packaged seafood chowders and dips for the freezer aisle.
Since MSX was discovered, some parts of the industry have been struggling, and oyster movement controls have been in place to try to prevent the spread of the lethal parasitic disease. But last year, the Canadian Food Inspection Agency declared all of the Atlantic provinces and Quebec areas in which MSX and Dermo are present or very likely to be present.
This week, PEI announced additional supports to address pressures on the industry, including relief to help offset payroll costs associated with increased sorting and handling requirements, and a reprieve on paying interest on existing loans.
PEI Premier Rob Lantz said in a press release that the uncertainty created by MSX and Dermo is deeply concerning for oyster fishers, growers and processors and the families and communities that depend on this industry.
“These targeted supports are about protecting jobs today while giving the sector the stability it needs to adapt and recover,” he said.
Last Friday, the Government of Canada announced $4.2-million to help island oyster harvesters and fishers adapt, restock and rebuild the industry. As part of the package, it’s offering to buy back licences from affected wild oyster harvesters.
Vanessa Tignanelli/The Globe and Mail