THE FIRST OYSTER

Southland Times, Issue 21178, 3 September 1930, Page 14

THE FIRST OYSTER

FOUNDATION OF LUCRATIVE INDUSTRY. A good deal of discussion has at times centred round the question as to how the oysters were introduced to this part of the world. About 1837, shortly after the whaling station was established at Riverton, Captain Howell, who. was manager at the time, decided to bring across some cattle from New South Wales which was looked to as New Zealand’s headquarters. The schooner Otago was chartered and she took aboard at Sydney some livestock and several sacks of oysters. Particularly rough weather was encountered on the return trip and she could not make Jacob’s River, as Riverton was then known, but decided to run for Bluff. The storm continued in fury, however, and at one stage the sacks of oysters were heaved overboard some distance out from Dog Island. .Some of the descendants of (he early settlers are firm in the belief that these few sacks formed the nucleus of the. present extensive beds in the straits between Dog Island and Ruapuke. This explanation is quite a feasible one, as the oyster is noted for the rapidity with which it multiplies.