Chesapeake Bay oyster project

It’s not the solution to the whole problem of the Chesapeake oyster, but a simple little thing like piling the shells that the juvenile oysters attach to deeper than usual has brought one oyster recovery project some success.

This project doesn’t address the problems of overfishing, pollution and disease that the oysters face, and the usual refrain of “it’s too expensive” is being heard, but it does show that if the oysters are given a chance they can fight back. The chance they need is a few years of no harvest, a few years of no polluted run off running through their homes, less silt mucking up their beds.

In other words, we should give oysters the same kinds of care we do our prized garden plants – give them the right soils, the right nutrients, the right amount of clean water, avoid walking all over them and they get healthy enough to fend off pests and disease.