About the Bay


		Galveston Bay Despite industrial development, a huge natural wonder

The Galveston Bay system is the largest and most productive of the Texas coast, comparable only to Chesapeake Bay on the east coast. Despite massive industrial discharges and heavy urban development from the four million people who live not far from its shores, Galveston Bay produces two-thirds of the Texas oyster harvest and a third of the state’s recreational fishery and commercial shrimp catch. When easterners dine on blue crabs on the Eastern Shore of Maryland, chances are those crabs could come from Galveston, not Chesapeake Bay, whose fisheries have been devastated by comparable urban development.

Galveston Bay still produces marine life because unlike Chesapeake Bay, it is relatively shallow, it is fed by several rivers, and it is frequently flushed in the winter by northerly winds that push huge amounts of water through major outlets at Bolivar Roads and San Luis Pass.

Galveston Bay is a complex and sprawling system, with areas that have distinct characteristics. At its northernmost extreme near Trinity Bay, sits the town of High Island, famous for an Audubon bird sanctuary that attracts bird watchers from all over the world. During the spring migration, brightly colored neotropical birds from Central American fly 700 miles across the Gulf of Mexico to drop exhausted—especially if they flown into a spring norther—into the oak mottes at High Island. In the fall over Smith Point, birders see hundreds of hawks migrating to South America. At Bolivar flats huge concentrations of shore birds gather at another Audubon sanctuary.

The characteristics of Galveston Bay as a harbor are important; its pass to the Gulf, Bolivar Roads, provides a major outlet for shipping. Galveston goes back to Cabeza de Vaca, the Spanish explorer who shipwrecked here in the 17th century. The pirate Lafitte made use of the island, Audubon visited it shortly after the Texas Revolution, and the great hurricane of 1900 nearly destroyed the city.

Tropical storms move beaches and sand dunes around, with devastating consequences to property owners who build houses on the beach. Sand hill cranes winter on the west end of Galveston island. At San Luis pass nesting shore birds share the beach with wade fishermen. Home of treacherous currents, San Luis pass claims the lives of careless fishermen and swimmers every year.

Text courtesy of proposed new publication, The Book of Texas Bays, by Michael Berry Hill and James Blackburn. Photos by Jim Olive.