Oyster Shortage Laid to Weather, Red Tide

Oysters will be in short supply in restaurants across the nation this holiday season because of recent bad weather and the toxic red tide on the Texas Gulf Coast, a seafood dealer says.

The oyster crop already was diminished because of a long drought last summer that hit an area from Louisiana to Virginia, said Emery Waite, a Galveston Bay seafood dealer with 150 oyster boats under contract.

In addition, many prime oyster bays along the Texas Gulf Coast have been closed to commercial harvests because of heavy rainfall and a red tide, which consists of potentially toxic one-cell organisms that concentrate in shellfish.