Herpes Virus Makes Oysters Rare Treat in French Holiday Season

Thomas Catonnet listens for the tell-tale death rattle at his oyster farm in France’s Arcachon Bay, as a falling tide exposes victims of a lethal virus ravaging the nation’s 157-year-old shellfish industry.

“You smell a particular odor and you hear the sound of shells,” said Catonnet, 33, sorting baby oysters in a wooden shack near the end of a 20-kilometer (12-mile) sandbar that shelters the bay from the Atlantic Ocean west of the city of Bordeaux. “A putrid smell. Nobody understands it.”