Googoo’s work has also been key to gaining a better understanding of MSX in Cape Breton, Beresford said. Along with about a dozen growers, they studied conditions in the Bras d’Or, as part of a provincially funded project with Cape Breton University and the Verschuren Centre in Sydney.
For the past several years, Googoo has been experimenting with the best way to grow oysters in shallow waters not far from his home in Whycocomagh, N.S.
Oysters grown on the bottom of lakes and ponds didn’t last, but those suspended in bags in water that freezes have done well. He hopes his success will encourage other people to dip back into the business, and that it could help growers in other parts of the Maritimes as they plan where to put their cages and how to move their product.
Through his efforts, he has managed to grow cocktail-sized oysters — coveted for their uniform size that makes them appealing to customers — but there are no local processing plants to get them to market. Federal rules mean he can’t ship them to other parts of the Maritimes because of MSX. So for now, he tends to about 700,000 oysters at various stages of development — sharing the larger ones with his community and selling to local restaurants.
“This is important to me anyway, to help the oysters come back, because they’ve been here before us, right?” he said.
“It took me over 50 years to learn this, so why keep it to myself?”
