My craving for oysters on the half shell was met by a neighbor delivering 19 large, wild-caught Chesapeake Bay oysters that I shucked and shared with my wife. A week later, my niece showed up with a New Year’s Eve surprise—a dozen large, shucked Patty’s Fatty’s aquaculture oysters from Wild Country Seafood at the site of the old McNasby’s in Eastport.
We delighted in dining on these bivalves, which were decidedly better. It was a bonus that they came from the McNasby’s site as I remember buying oysters there just off the patent tong rigs. Shuckers came from Baltimore shucking oysters through the night for on-premises sale and shipment elsewhere.
I also remember a cold December day 45 years ago when I went patent tonging off Hacketts Point with an oysterman I served as a deckhand, serving his luncheon soup. We landed 12 bushels for $15 a bushel at McNasby’s, and he rewarded me with another bushel.
Every winter, old-timers like me saw many oyster patent tongers tied up at City Dock after unloading their catch. A buy-boat, shaped like a small tug, would load oysters onto a conveyor belt filling a truck backed up to the water in the alley next to the Fleet Reserve. The oysters were headed for packing houses and restaurants in Baltimore.
Oyster boats at City dock and Hacketts have disappeared as oyster populations collapsed to 1% of historical levels. While cheap and plentiful in Europe, the abundance of Chesapeake oyster beds astonished the early Colonists. Seamen reported in amazement finding oyster-shell shoals large enough to capsize a boat.
In 1900, oyster processing was the 3rd largest industry in Baltimore. Ships carried Baltimore canned oysters to the California Gold Rush. Harvests once exceeded 15 million bushels in Maryland compared to a paltry 270,000 bushels last season. No wild oyster shucking houses are left on the western shore.
No other species or water quality indicator tells the tragic tale of the decline of the Chesapeake Bay. Oysters were watermen’s lifeblood, including for my great grandfather and generations before him. This depletion of the oyster resource hinders Bay recovery efforts as oysters once could filter-cleanse all the Bay’s waters in 3-5 days; now, it would take well over a year.
One study concluded that if the Bay states met their now abandoned goal of increasing oyster populations by tenfold from 1994 levels by 2010, it would have had the effect of removing 24 million pounds of nitrogen a year from the Bay, 25% of the nitrogen reduction goal. Oyster reefs also serve as the Bay’s coral reefs, hosting an incredible array of biodiversity, including crabs and rockfish.
What happened? Overharvest, destruction of habitat and diseases. The diseases have decreased, but more than 70% of Maryland’s oyster reefs are smothered in excess sediment, primarily from agricultural operations, and are non-productive. What are the solutions? Long-term, we need to clamp down on farm and development sediment and nutrients.
But nothing will work better to bring back oysters than ending the wild harvest and switching harvesters to aquaculture. This has occurred around the world where 95% of oysters harvested come from aquaculture. Maryland scientists concluded that if oyster harvest had ceased in 1986, adult abundance would have been 15.8 times greater in 2009. Instead, the population collapsed by 92%. The authors noted that “The collapse of eastern oysters in Maryland waters….is among the largest documented declines of a previously widespread marine species.” They called for a moratorium.
The Chesapeake Bay Foundation called for a moratorium in 1990. In 2010, CBF called for phasing out the wild harvest and moving to aquaculture. DNR announced oyster harvest restrictions last year that were supposed to reduce harvesting by 26%. Instead, harvest doubled. Now, DNR proposes to open up even more areas to wild harvest, shutting out aquaculture.
More than $150 million in federal and state funds have been used to plant oyster shells and spat-on-shell and establish oyster recovery areas. Choptank River oyster restoration cost over $55 million, and $30 million is allocated for the Manokin River project. Many of the oysters are legally harvested through these public expenditures, but the no-harvest sanctuaries lose at least 30% of oysters to poachers.
The 290,000 bushels oysters harvested last season brought harvesters $7.25 million net at $25 per bushel after expenses. Instead of spending exorbitant amounts each year on oyster plantings, a 5-year wild oyster phaseout should be enacted that shifts funds to pay harvesters to establish oyster aquaculture operations. This would boost oyster populations by much more with less money spent. A 5-year moratorium saved the rockfish after CBF refused to support my rockfish moratorium legislation in 1984. They and other conservationists must now support the oyster harvest phaseout.
