By Halle Parker
The New Orleans Advocate
Mitch Jurisich, a third-generation oysterman, dropped a long pair of oyster tongs into the Gulf of Mexico and lightly raked the water bottom.
When he brought up his catch — several oysters that he laid along the side of his boat — all but one were dead. The more resilient hooked mussels, typically found clustered along the area's oyster reefs, had suffered the same fate.