Police are on the hunt for a seafood swindler after 400,000 oysters were allegedly stolen from a farm at a river on the New South Wales mid-north coast. About 320 bags of juvenile oysters, worth an estimated $350,000, were taken from an oyster farm in Scotts Creek, Oxley Island, earlier this year, according to NSW police. Officers received a report of the theft on Tuesday morning and are urging members of the public with CCTV or dashcam footage to come forward.
Latitude 31 Oyster Co, which runs a Sydney rock oyster farm on Manning River adjacent to Scotts Creek, on Tuesday revealed it had been the target of a “massive” oyster theft that had been reported to police. It affects our businesses, our families and the reputation of the entire NSW oyster industry,” the business wrote in a social media post. Latitude 31 Oyster Co said the stolen oysters were not ready for immediate sale and would need to be grown for another four to six months.
Guardian Australia has contacted Latitude 31 Oyster Co to confirm the thefts are the same. Oyster farmer Gary Rodley, who owns Tathra Oysters on the NSW south coast, said fully grown oysters could be worth significantly more, estimating they could fetch about $1.50 to $2 a piece. The age of the stolen molluscs and the amount taken suggests the culprit could be a fellow producer, he said.
Major flooding in 2021 and 2025 wiped oyster stocks in the region, and because Sydney rock oysters are farmed on a three-year cycle, it could take another two years before farmers’ incomes stabilise. Theft is not uncommon in the Manning River area, but when he has been targeted, his oysters were taken by locals who had all year to scope out the area. The farmer took the issue into his own hands and bought an artificial oyster with a tracker from France that cost more than $2,000.
It allowed him to take a thief to court in 2022, where the culprit was fined $500. Many oyster farmers, including Rodley, have bought surveillance equipment to act as a deterrent as demand for Sydney rock oysters has grown.
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