It didn’t take long for New Orleanians to realize what BP’s environmental mugging of the Gulf coast could mean to their lives: no seafood. Imagine the French being told the nation’s vineyards had been destroyed. Or Italians being notified the future of pasta was imperiled. ¶ But as that kind of cultural panic was gripping the Big Easy, a different, deeper terror was taking hold on the marsh side of the levees. There the oil wasn’t just threatening menus; it posed a lethal threat to a unique wetlands community of commercial fishers and sportsmen who for hundreds of years have depended on that habitat to make a living, or to make their lives better. ¶ “Seeing that oil was like seeing the end of the world,” said Robert Campo, a commercial fisherman and fishing guide. “All I could think was: It’s over. Everybody—the commercials, the sports—we just sat here in shock, in terror.” ¶ Here are some of their stories.

The Oysterman
Pete Vujnovich
Port Sulphur, Louisiana

In 1908 the Vujnovich family arrived in coastal Louisiana from Croatia’s Dalmatian coast and almost immediately began fishing oysters. They never stopped—until BP blew a hole in the Gulf this year.

But like many commercial fishermen mothballed by BP, the current head of the clan, fifty-year-old Pete, is trying to take things in stride.

“Well, we’ve had to deal with hurricanes and pollution, and we just keep pushing on, and I guess that’s the only attitude we can have now,” he said, the day after the state closed Barataria Bay, site of his private reefs, to fishing.

“So I’m trying to stay positive. Hoping.”

What he’s hoping is that this isn’t a worst-case scenario for an industry that provides the nation with 40 percent of its oysters. The oil came during the spring spawn, and oyster larvae are extremely vulnerable to chemicals in a slick. The state is pumping fresh water into estuaries hoping to keep the oil out, but too much fresh water can kill a reef.

Meanwhile, oil is settling on the coast, threatening the intertidal reefs, which provide the backup spawn when interior reefs are killed.

“My biggest concern is for the future, for this way of life,” he said. “If this puts us out of business for very long, we’ll have to look for something else. And it’ll be gone forever. That’s just hard to think about.”