A year after Hurricane Ike devastated Galveston Bay’s oyster beds, the oystermen who have been harvesting seafood from the bay’s fertile waters for generations are barely hanging on, and many fear that this could be their last oyster season.

The boats that fan out over the bay every morning are harvesting only a third of what they usually do, and some longtime oystermen are thinking of finding a new line of work.

In a good year, each boat can bring in about 90 sacks of oysters a day, the legal limit. This year, the claw-shaped nets used to pull oysters are coming up empty half the time, and many of the oysters are too small to be legally harvested.

[Read](http://www.nytimes.com/2009/12/02/us/02oyster.html?src=sch&pagewanted=all “Read the Article”) (New York Times)