Southern Queensland's oyster industry

Abstract

The Southern Queensland oyster industry flourished from the 1870s to around 1920; it peaked soon after the turn of the century and declined from approximately 1910. The emphasis of this paper is a broad overview of these peak years. The industry was confined mostly to southern Queensland where there occurred wide inter-tidal flats along with a suitable edible oyster species — Saccostrea
(Crassostrea) commercialis. This oyster occurs from central Queensland down to the Victorian and New South Wales border and inappropriately is often called the Sydney rock oyster.