Oyster shortage: Big demand for 'Bluffies' sends prices skyrocketing

This season's Bluff oyster harvest will be half the allowable catch.

The Bluff oyster season comes with good and bad news this year - prices of the delicacy are sky high because the harvest will be half the total allowable catch, but there's optimism about the state of the industry, says Seafood NZ.

The industry advocate reports that licence holders have agreed to limit the catch to 7.5 million oysters, half of the regulated total allowable catch of 15 million.

An exclusive member-only club was this week offering one Bluff oyster for $20, said Seafood NZ in its latest newsletter (although down south, prices have been more modest).

The solo oyster came with a glass of bubbly but the price reflects the excitement the famous wild oysters, affectionately known as "Bluffies", from Foveaux Strait generate each year, it said.

Last year the oysters were also fished conservatively with about 10m landed on the same regulated catch allowance.

Seafood NZ said the owners of the 12 vessels fishing the Strait would assess the state of the fishery at the end of this month and push the catch towards a 10m total if warranted.

Rough weather meant fishing could not start in earnest until last Sunday. The season opened on March 1.

About 65 per cent of the catch is licensed to Barnes Oysters, a cooperative of eight companies that includes major seafood industry players Skeggs, Sanford, United and Independent, said Seafood NZ.

Ngai Tahu Seafoods is the next largest fisher. The Foodstuffs supermarket chain also has a small holding.

Seafood NZ said despite the licence-holders caution, there was optimism about the state of the industry.

There was no sign of the bonamia ostreae disease that has destroyed the farmed oyster industry on Stewart Island and in the Marlborough Sounds.

Wild oysters are infected with a different strain of bonamia - exitiosus - which is not harmful to humans and is at low levels this season, said Seafood NZ.

Catches have fluctuated wildly over the years.

The catch was at 15m for six years up until 2002 when the ever-threatening bonamia struck.

At the time NIWA estimated mortality of the mature oysters was as high as 90 per cent - around 1.2 billion shellfish, said Seafood NZ.

The catch was halved for five years before slowly building back up until 2014 when the disease caused as much as 30 per cent mortality.

Oysters are slow growing in the cold Strait waters and are around nine years old when harvested.

Spawning and the weather can be equal challenges to a good season.

Last year it blew so hard in April the boats only got out on six days.

The season ends on August 31 but most of the boats will be tied up by then, said Seafood NZ.