Paspaley Arsonist Caught

ABC is reporting that the fire was intentionally set, and a young bloke will be appearing in court today facing charges for intentionally starting the fire. Allegedly, he lit the fire with a cigarette lighter and hid in the trees watching it burn.

Some damage was done to Paspaley's historical pearl sheds, pearl racks were burnt out creating a massive black cloud over Kimberley. It could've of been much worse if not for the efforts of the local fire department.

Paspaley Catches Fire!!!

Paspaley was apparently the target of an arson attack this past evening. Someone set the building afire with damages totalling near a quarter million so far. This was the office in Broome on Carnarvon.

Nothing is worse than a pyromaniac at the end of a hot summer.

More details to come!

The Pearl Oyster by Southgate and Lucas

A must have book!

The Pearl Oyster is a remarkable book published in 2008 by Elsevier. Publishing authors are Paul Southgate and John Lucas. However, other authors contributed to the information-rich 16 chapters (574 pages).

The book is pure science, a real book, to read with a lot of attention, not a coffee table book with glossy photos. However, for all pearl lovers, it’s a book offering tremendous amounts of fundamental information, far from all the numerous errors hawked from all the amateur works polluting the pearl-book market or pearl Websites.

After an introduction by Elisabeth Strack, a good summary of the pearl through civilisations and time, it starts with the biology of pearl oysters and their classifications. From the start, you feel in step with the authors Wada and Tempikin who reconsider the number of species and the note an inappropriate inflation in the number of species in the genera of Pteriidae. Morphology of the shell is not the ultimate criteria anymore. Local adaptation, variation and so on, are facts and are integrated into this paper.

Finally, pure zoology in a book related to pearls! Pinctada fucata, - martensii – radiata – imbricata are considered together, in one word: the akoya oyster. The following quote is crucial : “Taken together, these studies suggest that the akoya pearl oyster is a cosmopolitan, globally distributed species, characterized by substantial intra-specific variation, largely due to climate genetic differentiation and morphological plasticity.”

You will then discover all about oysters: their inner workings (anatomy), how the shell grows, how they feed and how they reproduce. Loads of questions are answered: their food, the climate influence, the effects of pollution and toxins and so on. In the chapter on pearl oyster culturing, you will discover all the hatchery methods; from collecting adults in the wild to spawning in controlled environments. The menu of the larvae is detailed and quite impressive - almost as long as a Chinese menu and often nearly as difficult to pronounce.

Of course, the most crucial chapter is the “Pearl Production” chapter, by Elisateth Strack and Joseph Taylor. Joseph is likely the most talented pearl farmer growing South Sea pearls today. He is an immense asset to Atlas pearl, and is mostly based in Bali. There, he experiments with techniques of controlling the quality of pearls through DNA studies and accordingly, a selection program. The most advanced technologies preparing the future of pearl farming are experimented with there, on the northern coast of Bali and in some of the other farms of Atlas Pearls in Papua New Guinea. It would be very difficult to find a better pair of authors to write on such a subject.

I also appreciated the chapter Disease and Predation. The life of an oyster is not a quiet life. Predation is a real factor sustaining large losses, both financially and biologically. The oysters are the life-sustaining prey of thousands of organisms that farmers must remove regularly. It is the biofouling, or settlement of plants and animal on oysters. It can be catastrophic, inducing mass mortality.

By the end of this book, the romantic ideas of pearl farmers spending their lives in swimming shorts, in a beautiful environment, taking out marvellous and valuable pearls, is destroyed forever. To be a pearl farmer, you are a biologist, a DNA specialist, and you are facing everyday environmental threats.

Finally, you have to be rich: being a pearl farmer today, means likely being bankrupt in quite a short time!

The Pearl Oyster, Paul Southgate and John Lucas, 99 USD on Amazon.com.

Black Gold and Pearls

It is easy to argue that the natural pearl industry was destroyed Mikimoto in the early 20th century. Until he convinced the world his cultured product was just as good as natural, pearls were the lifeblood of many pearl cities around the Gulf and throughout the Middle East. But what those communities lost was replaced with a natural resource even more valuable – oil.

In today’s market, oil and pearls do not mix. Gas a pearls do not mix. Pipelines running through pearl farms do not mix. In fact, the only thing that mixes well with pearl oysters is Mother Nature.

With the possibility of dealing another blow to the staggering South Sea pearl industry Woodside Energy is planning a billion-dollar gas line north of Broome, right dab in the middle of some of the richest shell beds in the waters of NWA. The project would require extensive dredging and prolonged dredging even after project completion.

As if compensation for such a travesty is only due to producers in the area, Broom-based Clipper Pearls has taken legal advice over a $150 million compensation against Woodside Energy. The money may offset future losses to extent, but does nothing to repair the long-term damage a project like this will cause.

No Pearl News is not Good Pearl News

Damn it! Where is the pearl news? It seems the industry has nearly gone silent over the last few months. There is talk, but there is always talk. Even the rags are mostly quiet. Today, I received my long-awaited issue of Jewellery News Asia. There is always something interesting there. Rarely is it the full story, but always something to go on. Hell, they have an entire section of the pub dedicated to pearls. But the entire bloody thing in the new issue was a report on The World Pearl Forum in Dubai. It’s May for Christ’s sake. That’s old news!

On the rumor front, the same whisperings about Autore are making their way around the industry. “Hey, did you hear Autore closed this office and that office?” Yep! Heard it! It doesn’t sound like they’re bunging on an act.

I know publishing that rumor a couple months backed chapped a few hides, but come on folks! It is not a rumor that a lot of producers whose production was historically sold by Autore are not renewing contracts. Atlas had a presence at the Hong Kong show and Arafura is actively seeking direct-sale relationships now. It would seem they may be getting ready to go belly up at any tic of the clock.

…and now here comes the hate mail.

One interesting tidbit came from CIBJO recently. Apparently there is new treatment being applied to akoya. Those Japanese sure are resourceful. This time they are injecting metal fluids directly into the pearl’s sac during growth. I guess they cannot wait to color-treat those buggers. CIBJO is now calling them “colour induced pearls.”