Coastal Connections: How one student is uniting Gulf state oyster farmers

Doctoral student Jill Sower has traveled the coast visiting oyster farmers like Hugh McClure, owner of the Point aux Pins oyster farm in Grand Bay, Alabama.

In 2019, a massive influx of fresh water from the Mississippi River overflowed into the salty Mississippi Sound, devastating coastal aquatic life. Auburn University student Jill Sower, who arrived a year later to study Gulf Coast oysters, remembers the aftermath.

“We would depart from a well-known fishing spot, and whenever we came back, there would be fisherman trying to look at our bushel baskets to see if we found anything live, and it would always just be empty shells,” she said. “There was a 100% mortality rate across Mississippi’s historic oyster reefs. It was just so sad.”

A native of Harrisonburg, Virginia, and a student in the College of Forestry, Wildlife and Environment, Sower will graduate this December with a doctorate in earth system science. Her research on Alabama’s oyster farming industry has earned her a prestigious year-long Science Policy Fellowship from the National Academies of Science, Engineering and Medicine’s Gulf Research Program.