Oyster farms at the Deep Bay are abandoned due to serious water pollution and the decline of importance in oyster farming.
Oyster farming was once a major local industry with production being practiced in deep bay, and it has been estimated that oysters have been cultivated for more that 700 years in Hong Kong. The shallowness of deep bay is the result of a large amount of silt carried down from the rivers in the New Territories and from the Pearl Estuary. Typical estuarine conditions with the bay made the muddy intertidal flat at and around Lau Fau Shan an ideal place for oyster cultivation. In the late 1950’s, the total yields by local oyster farmers in Deep Bay was nearly 1200 metric tones per annum and the total value was US$310,000. (1950’s value) Since the mid-1960’s, Oyster production in Lau Fau Shan dramatically declined to a stable level of several tens of metric tones per annum in the 1980’s. Increasingly serious water pollution in Deep Bay. Serious water pollution resulted in heavy metal accumulation in tissue, bacterial and viral infections of oysters. When such contamination or infections affect oyster individuals, there is then a substantial health risk to human after consumption. Also, the abnormally high concentration of suspended particles such as clay, silt and organic matter in the matter in the Deep Bay water adversely affects the growth of oyster. This is because increased level of suspended solid would lead to suffocation of oysters as deposition of suspended solid clogs their breathing system.
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Photo credit: © Chris Wong / Alamy / Afripics
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