| The term diving is
used here in its true sense. No longer was oyster fishing a matter
of standing waist-deep in the sea or simply diving into shallow water
to pick up the oysters. Now the divers had to descend to depths of
20 to 30 meters (approximately 60 to 90 feet) to harvest the precious
crop.
In the early part of the twentieth century the situation of the
pearl oyster was worrisome but by 1962 it had become catastrophic.
Thanks to conservation measures enforced by the Department of Fisheries,
the pessimists who predicted the complete extinction of the pearl
oyster were proved wrong. However, it wasn't the mother-of-pearl
trade that saved the pearl oyster, since demand for that substance
had fallen off worldwide; rather it was the pearls themselves.
|
