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Europe (18th, 19th Century)
The Europeans felt the pinch of oyster shortages long before the Americans did. The European Oyster (Ostrea edulis) once reigned sovereignly in the fjords and along the shores of Norway, Great Britain, Ireland, Holland, Belgium, clear down the French Atlantic Coast, Spain, Portugal, Morocco and the Mediterranean, all the way to the Black Sea. Effective legislation limiting the oyster harvest was few and far between in all of Europe clear up to the middle of the 18th century. By the end of the 19th century, European Oysters had practically ceased to exist.
Both centuries were marked by a number of major wars, notably the Thirty Years War (1618-1648), the French Revolutionary Wars (1792-1802) and the Napoleonic Wars (1803-1815). War years generally lowered the level of oyster harvesting significantly, as oystermen were called to arms. During the Napoleonic Wars, oystering in France was very limited due to the presence of hostile English cruisers off shore. Napoleon, however, was known to never pass on the opportunity of slurping oysters before doing battle. Incidentally, he's also the one who ended up selling the entire territory of Louisiana to the US (Louisiana Purchase) in 1803 for 15 million dollars. Louisiana is historically by far the largest oyster producing state in the Union.
The possibly earliest harvest regulations were passed in old Germany. In 1587, King Frederic II, Duke of Holstein-Gottrop, "requested" the limitation of oyster harvesting in the vast mud flats of the German North Sea around the Isle of Sylt, the so-called "Wattenmeer". This regulation later converted into 20 year leases on tracts of these once highly productive oyster beds. The principle of paid concessions on oyster beds would later also be implemented by some other European countries. The German author Peter Freese reports in his beautifully illustrated book "Austern" ("Oysters") that in 1870 one could still count 47 splendid oyster reefs, up to 4 km long each, between "Romo, Sylz, Amrum and Föhr". Between the years 1859 and 1873, approximately 5 million European Oysters were harvested annually by the Germans. In the first decade of the 20th century, the Germans ran out of oysters.
France controls more than 2,000 miles of coastline, featuring many of the finest oyster grounds in the world. Historically, the French oyster industry was aided by four most significant factors: strict regulations of oyster harvesting, mercantilism and, in the second half of the 19th century, the development and implementation of oyster cultivation methods as well as the accidental introduction of a powerful new oyster species.
The French didn't have any oyster regulations to speak of up to the 18th century. In the early 1700s, they started to suffer from oyster shortages in various areas. In 1759, a law was passed for all of France, forbidding the harvesting and selling of oysters for six months out of the year - from the end of April through the end of October (the precursor to the famous "R-Months"). The renowned French oyster village Cancale was particularly hard hit by shortages in 1766. Cancale was a most preferred supplier of the French Royal Court. Hence, when Cancale could not adequately supply the royal Versailles anymore with delicious oysters, it got everybody's attention.
The French Admiralty ordered a study of
the problem immediately, resulting in tougher oyster laws. The
"Cancalaise" were now only permitted to harvest specific
tracts on a more or less rotating yearly basis. Enforcement of
the rules was initially poor, which soon resulted in further
shortages. An official "oyster inspector" was finally
appointed to keep an eye on the oystermen. By 1787, the regulations
were once again updated. This time four officials called "gardes
jurés" were chosen yearly by the oystermen themselves
out of their midst, which in turn reported to the inspector of
the French Admiralty. Although these four officials had no real
policing authority, they certainly had clout and could make "things
happen" indirectly. They decided what areas were open for
oyster harvesting and when they could be harvested. The author
Robert Neild, in his marvelous book titled "The English,
the French and the Oyster", describes this most prudent
system of checks and balances in detail. Briefly, the regulation
contained these elements:
The oyster season was closed between April 1 and October 15.
In September of each year, the "gardes jurés"
would get together with their predecessors from the year before
and take samples at all the tracts. During the first Sunday in
October all the oystermen, the gardes jurés and the inspector
would then meet and be briefed by the gardes jurés on
the condition of the various tracts. A majority vote would then
designate, which tracts would be opened for the upcoming season
(starting Oct. 15). Oystermen from outside of Cancale could also
partake in the harvesting, however only by permission of the
Admiralty, which would designate quotas. During the course of
the season, the four gardes jurés would decide on what
days harvesting would take place. At such a time, all the oyster
boats would depart together, led by the boats of the gardes jurés.
This spectacular sight of all the sailing boats taking to sea
together became well known later as the famous "Caravane".
It was celebrated yearly clear into the 20th century. After the
harvest, the catch had to be sorted by hand right on the spot.
No oysters were allowed to be transplanted elsewhere. All under-sized
oysters had to be returned to their original habitat. One of
the four gardes jurés later inspected each catch.
This new system also featured some stiff penalties. Anybody caught taking oysters during off-times not only lost their boat and dredge, but was also fined to boot. Anybody caught harvesting on tracts not authorized by the gardes jurés was fined heavily. Authorized tracts showing poor harvest levels in the course of a season would be closed. It worked and similar regulations stayed in place well into the 19th century.
After the Napoleonic Wars, over-harvesting gradually started to resume again. The enforcement of oyster regulations hat lost much of its bite and excessive dredging for oysters was soon worse than ever before. Between the years 1836 and 1847, the oystermen of Cancale were hauling up about 50 to 70 million European Oysters per year. By 1856, less than a decade later, the average production per year had dropped to 18 million. The harvest continued to rapidly become smaller and smaller, resulting in only approximately 1 - 2 million oysters per year in the 1860s.
The French economy was founded on mercantilism.
Government regulation thus permeated all private sectors, although
at first exploiting business with excessive taxation, in later
decades, however, balancing business growth by supporting and
protecting the mercantile class and natural resources. This ultimately
affected the French oyster industry positively. By 1852 a law
was passed, which subjected the oyster fishery in virtually all
of the French coastal areas to licensing of the oyster grounds
by the government. Oystermen were thus obligated to pay a fee
in order to be granted concessions. The success of oystering
outfits was hence dependent on the ability to secure and renew
valuable concessions with the blessing of the government.
Although this opened the doors of opportunity for any and all
oystering operations, particularly for many small French family
businesses, there were, initially at least, hardly any oysters
left. Oystermen up and down the French coast were going out of
business left and right. This would ultimately change with the
development of large governmental oyster cultivation parks by
the late 50s and early 60s.
In the late 1850s, France started cultivating oysters aggressively. Financed by the emperor Napoleon III, a prominent French naturalist by the name of Victor Coste started setting up sites all along the coast of France for purposes of controlled catching of oyster larvae and the subsequent raising of oyster babies (the French call them "naissains", while we call them "spat"). This ultimately revolutionized the oyster industry. At first, the government took over a number of vast oyster beds which had already been depleted and started cultivating them with Coste's methods. The American naturalist W.K. Brooks reported in his late 19th century book called "The Oyster" that one such oyster bed of 1,000 acres, practically devoid of any oysters due to over-harvesting, was cultivated in this manner and yielded 16 million marketable oysters by 1863. The government farms, however, did not prove to be viable, so the management of the oyster grounds was moved largely to the private sector by way of governmental oystering concessions. Cultivation managed to rekindle an already failed French oyster industry rapidly. By the 70s, governmental oyster concessions were selling like hot cakes. W.K. Brooks reported, that by 1874, just in and around the famed oystering region of Arcachon, 2.434 oystering concessions had been issued, covering some 6.625 acres.
Lastly, a new oyster species, the Portuguese Oyster (Crassostrea angulata) was introduced quite by accident along the Atlantic coast of France. In 1868, a freighter by the name of Le Morlaisien ended up getting caught in a mighty storm on the Atlantic near the estuary of the river Gironde. Its cargo consisted of about 600,000 Portuguese Oysters destined for markets in England. Trapped by the storm, the ship had to seek refuge closer to shore for a few days. The highly perishable cargo of fresh oysters was spoiling rapidly. The captain and crew of the ship, by now likely suffering greatly from the stench of decaying oysters, pleaded with an official in Bordeaux for permission to dump the load of dead oysters overboard. Permission was granted. Just a few years later, much to the surprise and initial dismay of local French oystermen, an number of these Portuguese Oysters started turning up in famous oystering grounds like Marennes-Oléron. Some of the oysters originally thought dead, obviously were not. It's also likely that the shells of the discarded dead oysters were already populated with lots of tiny oyster babies. Favorable ocean currents subsequently distributed this new species rapidly. At first, French oystermen were greatly concerned that the Portuguese oysters would encroach upon and lastly drive out what was left of their precious European Oyster. Instead, the highly prolific Portuguese Oyster ultimately proved to be far more suitable for cultivation than the European Oyster and soon became the mainstay of the French oyster industry. It remained as such clear into the 60s of the 20th century.
A different type of governmental interaction
with the oystering industry existed in England in the 18th and
19th century. Oystermen operated largely in a system called "Laissez
faire" ("leave them alone" or "let them do").
It's considered the flip side of mercantilism. The English monarchs
and later governments were obligated to keep their hands off
the oystermen and largely not restrict their business endeavors
along the coasts of England. Overtly, the English Laissez faire
might seem more sensible in terms of growing the business sector
and in many cases it was (and is). It does, however, have it's
pit falls. Declaring the maritime fishing grounds "no man's
land", ruled by common law and owned by everyone and no
one, led to uncontrolled and rampant exploitation of natural
resources. Although England had some laws restricting oyster
harvesting on the books as early as 1729, the English, at the
dawn of the 20th century, had run out of oysters - much the same
as the Germans, Dutch and Belgians already had. The principles
of oyster cultivation had also been ignored and the once mighty
English oyster industry failed.
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