Oyster grower Bernie Connell wins Australian title, waiting on possible world record
Bernie Connell (left) holds aloft Jill, the 3kg oyster, he grew over nine years on the Clyde River. (ABC South East NSW: Bernadette Clarke)
After 55 years farming oysters and five attempts at the world record, Bernie Connell and his oyster nicknamed ‘Jill’ look set to enter the history books after this weekend’s Narooma Oyster Festival on the NSW far south coast.
Mr Connell says he’s now waiting on a call from the team at the Guinness Book of World Records confirming the record for growing the world’s largest oyster.
Jill, the oyster, is almost a decade old and weighs in at a whopping 3.01 kilograms, making it almost twice the size of the current record of 1.6kg, set in Denmark in 2013.
On Saturday, Mr Connell was handed Australia’s Biggest Oyster Award at the Narooma Oyster Festival, taking out first, second and third place.
While he knew Jill was a contender, he said he wasn’t sure exactly how heavy she was until he took her to the festival.
“I haven’t weighed her for a while and this morning my scales had a flat battery,” he said with a laugh.
“Nine years ago she came over from Tasmania the size of a match head, now look.”
Mr Connell’s family has been growing oysters on the Clyde River near Batemans Bay for a century, and it’s been his life’s passion for more than five decades.
“In 55 years of growing oysters, this will be my claim to fame,” he said.
“I might retire now.”
Jill is a ‘fast grower’
During Saturday’s competition, Jim and John Yiannaros of Batemans Bay Oysters also produced some heavy contenders, equally placing fourth, with their oysters ‘Georgie’ and ‘Nick’ both weighing in at 2.18kg.
Mr Connell said the secret to growing big oysters was the diet, and described Jill as a naturally “fast grower”.
“The main thing is what they eat, and in this river, we have 18 kinds of algae and this kind of oyster eats the lot, that’s why they grow so big,” he said.
“You also have to bring them back to the shed to clean every four months, and then put them back in the water.”
While he says Jill still has some growing to do, he says he’s been told she could fetch a hefty sum to an interested buyer.
“I was told by a gentleman that with a world record, if I took it to a market in China or Japan I could get someone to pay $100,000 just so they could say they ate the world’s biggest oyster,” he said.
“So that’s something to think about.”
While he’s excited about his work entering the pages of the Guinness Book of World Records, he says he has many more oysters waiting in the waters ready to try to break Jill’s record.