Chesapeake Almanac

Organizations throughout Maryland and Virginia collect empty shells from restaurants, clean and set them with spat (oyster larvae), then replenish sanctuary reefs with the spat-on-shell.

AILEEN DEVLIN / VIRGINIA SEA GRANT the diseases initially killed some, the oysters that survived began forming a disease-tolerant stock.

In the summer of 1993, the state of Maryland brought together a panel of 40 experts known as the Oyster Roundtable, which released a 30-page Action Plan for Oyster Recovery. The plan detailed a series of next steps, including the restoration program now underway at the UMCES Horn Point Laboratory’s oyster culture facility on the Choptank near Cambridge and the founding of the Oyster Recovery Partnership (ORP) in 1994. A key element of Maryland’s Action Plan was to reestablish three-dimensional reefs for ecosystem restoration on natural oyster bars closed to harvest.

Meanwhile, in 1997, VIMS established a new Aquaculture Genetics and Breeding Technology Center (ABC). Its scientists use a combination of selective breeding and genetic research to domesticate the native Eastern oyster, Crassostrea virginica, for aquaculture and improvement of traits such as survival, growth rate, shape and meat yield. ABC raises these oysters to supply brood stock for oyster farmers along the East Coast, a crucial role in helping build what has become Virginia’s $16 million aquaculture industry.

In 1999, the Chesapeake Research Consortium released guidance for restoration that specifically described the value of reefs: “Three-dimensional reefs, standing substantially above the bottom, are essential for oyster reproductive success, for predator protection and to create habitat for other organisms.” Today, many more people understand the broad

ecological values of the reefs our oysters can build. Evidence has also built that healthy oyster reefs remove substantial quantities of nitrogen, a critical Bay pollutant.

During the 1990s, because of frustration with MSX and Dermo, interest grew for introduction of a nonnative Asian oyster species, Crassostrea ariakensis, which appeared to resist the diseases. VIMS scientists experimented with sterile triploid Asians (oysters bred with three sets of genetic material instead of two), to avoid introducing the species into the wild. However, an aquaculture study with Virginia watermen found that native triploid oysters grew nearly as fast, with better shelf life and flavor. That finding and improvements in offbottom culture techniques touched off a boom in Virginia aquaculture of both sterile and fertile natives. Meanwhile, signs of disease tolerance appeared in the Rappahannock’s rotational harvest reefs, improving the public fishery. 10 Tributaries Targeted for Restoration The year 2009 was a turning point for oyster restoration when officials rejected the proposal to introduce Asian oysters to the Bay in favor of scaling up native oyster restoration. An Executive Order that year from President Obama set in motion a new collaborative strategy to focus resources on 10 targeted tributaries (five in Maryland and five in Virginia) to restore whole networks of selfsustaining reefs. Maryland’s subsequent 10-Point Plan embraced this strategy and established harvest sanctuaries in 24% of the state’s productive areas to implement it. A renewal of the state-federal Chesapeake Bay Agreement in 2014 further cemented the restoration strategy while encouraging aquaculture and setting guidelines for wild harvest.  MAINTENANCE COMPANY MAINTENANCE COMPANY

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Restoring the reefs in the targeted tributaries has been a learning process, not without its controversies and stumbles. One problem is a shortage of shell as substrate for restoration. With the century-long decline in harvest, there simply isn’t enough shell around for the jobs at hand. Within careful scientifi c guidelines, the various restoration partners have experimented successfully with alternative materials including granite blocks, recycled and crushed concrete, and igloo-shaped concrete “reef balls,” all covered with spat-on-shell.

Fortunately, there is real progress. As of this writing at the end of 2022, three sanctuaries in Maryland are complete: Harris Creek and the Tred Avon River on the Choptank and the entire Little Choptank. The remaining two, the upper St. Mary’s River and the Manokin, are in various stages of design, reef construction and planting of spat-on-shell. Virginia has completed restoration in Norfolk’s Lafayette River and a nearby bonus, the Elizabeth River’s Eastern Branch. The process is well underway in Virginia Beach’s Lynnhaven River, the Piankatank and the Nansemond, with planning and early planting underway on the lower York River and the Great Wicomico.

The whole endeavor is a wideranging partnership, including the Corps of Engineers, NOAA, VMRC, the Maryland Department of Natural Resources (MD DNR), the Potomac River Fisheries Commission (PRFC), VIMS, UMCES, ORP, the Chesapeake Bay Foundation (CBF), The Nature Conservancy (TNC), several watermen’s associations and county watermen’s oyster committees. It’s worth noting that many citizen volunteers and school students in both states are pitching in to help with restoration, especially with ORP’s Marylanders Grow Oysters, CBF, Lynnhaven River Now, the Nansemond Indian Nation, the Friends of the St. Mary’s River, the Severn River Association and the Coastal Conservation Association/Maryland.

Maryland’s wild harvest bottomed out in the 2003–04 season at a miserable 19,028 bushels but has rebounded in the past 10 years to a range between 150,000 and 420,000 bushels. Aquaculture, including oysters grown both on bottom and in the water column, has averaged about 75,000 bushels. After brutally lean years between 2000 and 2010, Virginia’s total oyster harvests began rising to 600,000 bushels in 2013–14 and have remained stable at around that level for the past several years. It’s worth noting for most of that time, the private harvest on leased bottom and from aquaculture has exceeded that from wild harvest on managed public reefs. Oyster husbandry does work.

Even more important than these encouraging harvest statistics, we citizens of the Chesapeake have fallen love with our oysters again, not only as nutritious and treasured seafood but also for their contributions to the health of our Bay.

We certainly don’t want to lose our oyster industry, so programs to sustain and grow it are vital, but it’s even more important that we restore the reefs, for all of the other benefi ts they provide. Oysters grow reefs according to their own schedules, not ours. They can’t rebuild a century’s worth of damage in a year or two. Between the watermens’ communities, the scientists and an appreciative general public, we’ve learned ways to help them grow, especially when we all work together. Now we need to keep that e ort going, joyfully, for decades, to ensure our oysters’ future, and our own.

CBM Editor-at-Large John Page Williams is a shing guide, educator, author, and naturalist, saving the Bay since 1973.

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ou’d think that someone who styles himself as an “Oyster Ninja” would be over the top, but when you meet this gentle man, you’ll quickly realize what a misnomer it is. Distinctly humble for a nationally ranked oyster shucker who’s competed in contests as far afi eld as Prince Edward Island, Gardner Douglas has also launched a series of podcasts and YouTube videos where he shares his knowledge and skills.

In one video, Douglas demonstrates the various traditional methods of shucking oysters—from the back (“hinging”) or from the front (“stabbing”)—and the styles of knives best designed for each approach. He’s a natural on camera, immediately likeable and fun to watch. He seems to have a magical empathy with his audience.

“I grew up on the Eastern Shore of Virginia, near Chincoteague,” he recalled in a recent interview. “My grandmother raised me. I was brought up in church, and my grandmother would take me along to visit sick neighbors and old folks’ homes. She taught me about caring about people—that stuck in me.”

Douglas was in his early 20s when he met his father. “He’s the one who taught me how to shuck oysters,” he said. “They’d hire me and my dad and some other shuckers to work at oyster-and-bull roasts around the region.”

After joining the Army National Guard, he was deployed to Kandahar, Afghanistan, in 2013. When he came back a year later, he said, “I wanted something that would be a stress-reliever; I wanted to be on cruise control for a while. I found that in oysters. It was also a good way to meet people. I’m shucking oysters and feeding you and sharing memories about your fi rst oyster or your fi rst oyster knife, growing up on the water, stu like that. It brings you closer to people.”

Eventually, Douglas started his own business, S.S.Shucking, shucking at private parties in the D.C.

Championship shucker Gardner Douglas shares his passion online

area and as far away as Philadelphia. “Then I got into competition,” he recalls. “It was so wonderful meeting other shuckers and learning about their cultures. Everywhere on the East Coast, Canada, New England, the Carolinas, has a di erent culture, all familiar, but all di erent as well.” He shares what he’s learned in his social media. “The podcast tells the smaller stories that don’t make the headlines. It’s sharing the stories, sharing the struggles, breaking the myths and teaching people about oysters,” he said.

Douglas produces two episodes per month. “The thing about me,” he explains, “I’ve always been an entrepreneur, but the podcast has been a whole di erent journey. One of my mentors said I have good stories to tell. I asked myself, are people interested in what I’m interested in? I couldn’t fi nd anything close to what I wanted to do. I loved learning about recording audio and video and editing, how to tell a story. I can guide the conversation where I want it to go, where it will entertain the audience. It’s been really fun.” And it shows. You can follow Douglas on Instagram at @s.s.shucking and fi nd The Oyster Ninja Podcast on Spotify or wherever you get your podcasts.