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This article was written by Sheehan Desjardins and originally published by CBC News on July 29, 2024 at 6:00AM ADT. We are sharing the full text here for reference. All rights remain with the original publisher.

‘It’s hard to sleep because we don’t know what’s gonna happen’

Gordon Jeffery says 23 years in the oyster processing business has shown him just how many people on P.E.I. rely on that fishery to make a living. (Julien Lecacheur/Radio-Canada)

A major oyster processing plant in Western P.E.I. says the discovery of multinuclear sphere X (MSX) in Island oysters has already cost the company roughly $100,000.

The parasite is harmless to humans but can be lethal to the oysters and stunt their growth.

“Every night it’s hard to sleep because we don’t know what’s gonna happen,” said Gordon Jeffery, the owner and manager of Five Star Shellfish.

“We’re all concerned about the whole industry.”

MSX was first detected in P.E.I.’s Bedeque Bay on July 11. But it has since been confirmed in several areas throughout the province — leaving industry professionals scrambling to get a grip on the situation.

‘A lot of stress’

In a good year, Jeffery said, Five Star Shellfish can go through more than 15 million oysters. But because of MSX, the company had a brief time where it couldn’t get its oysters to market and stopped purchasing from harvesters.

“We lost sales,” he said. “It cost people some revenue and the workers here didn’t know if they were gonna get paid or didn’t know if they can come to work. So it caused a lot of stress over the last two weeks.”

The company is now able to get its product to market — with the help of additional paperwork — so some of that stress is finally starting to ease, Jeffery said.

Now the goal is to sell as many oysters as possible since it’s still too early to know how MSX will impact the industry a few years down the road. Oysters taken out of the ocean today aren’t at risk of being exposed to the parasite tomorrow.

‘We don’t know how bad it is, but we’ll know in the next two to three years,’ says Gordon Jeffery. (Julien Lecacheur/Radio-Canada)

“We’re trying to get product to market to try to clean beds off,” he said. “If we can get the oyster out of the water quick enough and sell it to market when it’s mature, I’m thinking we solved that problem.”

Seeking a path forward

The lingering uncertainty is one of the hardest parts for Jeffery, though.

His processing plant has been in business for 23 years, and he’s witnessed just how many people on P.E.I. rely on oysters to make a living. He knows there are still lots of unanswered questions when it comes to MSX.

“Oysters are beautiful. Keep eating oysters.”— Gordon Jeffery

Regardless, Jeffery said he’s sure a way forward is out there, and he is determined to work as hard as possible to find it.

“We’re trying to come up with something, a solution to try to keep it going … People rely on that for income to feed their families,” he said.

The manager of Five Star Shellfish says its oysters are now back on the market, after a time when they weren’t allowed to be sold. (Julien Lecacheur)

“I’ve done this for 23 years, you know. I can’t just walk away from it.”

In the meantime, Jeffery is encouraging Islanders to support the industry by continuing to eat oysters.

“That’s what will help our business and help communities and it’ll help P.E.I. to keep going,” he said.

“It’s just a parasite in the oyster — it sounds bad, but it’s not. It don’t hurt human consumption. It’s nothing else in the oyster. Oysters are beautiful. Keep eating oysters.”