To What Extent Does Oyster Harvesting Affect The Chesapeake Bay?

Posted

Oyster harvesting season started in October. As one of the county’s oldest traditions, oyster harvesting can be traced back for centuries.

With so much attention focused on planting oysters in the Chesapeake Bay, are there negative effects to harvesting season?

“Obviously, every time you take an oyster out of the water, you’re reducing their ability to filter the water overall,” said Allison Colden, a Maryland fisheries scientist at the Chesapeake Bay Foundation.

To put that in perspective, Colden said, there are more negative impacts to the water quality based on what we’re doing on land and in the air than from taking oysters out of the water.

“Would there be a water quality signal associated with oyster harvesting? Most likely not, but we do know that doing restoration large-scale can help improve that,” Colden said.

The oysters that have been planted in the Chesapeake Bay by organizations like the Oyster Recovery Partnership and Severn River Association are on sanctuaries. This means that fishing and harvesting are prohibited in those areas.

In order to obtain a harvesting license, fishermen must acknowledge that they have received and reviewed the shellfish closure book, which details where the oyster sanctuaries are located.

“To commercially harvest oysters, an individual needs to be a license holder and purchase an annual oyster surcharge,” said Gregg Bortz, the chief public information officer at the Maryland Department of Natural Resources. “There is no test, but they do receive an annual shellfish closure book, which provides important information for commercial harvesters.”

In addition to the shellfish closure book, DNR marks sanctuaries with buoys.

“The good thing about the design of the oyster sanctuaries when they were put in is that they were designed to help ease enforcement,” Colden said. “In areas where they were going to protect a large amount of acreage in a creek or a river, they went ahead and put the sanctuary line across the mouth of that river.”

Various penalties and fines are levied for harvesting in a protected area or neglecting to follow the harvesting laws, including getting a harvesting license revoked.

During oyster harvesting season, the Oyster Recovery Partnership sees an increase in shell donations.

“The end of October through May is our busiest time,” said Karis King, public relations and events manager for the Oyster Recovery Partnership.

“While we always encourage oyster lovers to recycle their shells at one of our public drop sites and dine at shell recycling restaurants, we ramp messaging up even more with posts on our homepage and on social media,” King said. “We also participate in increased oyster education and outreach events, and ensure shell recycling continues to be a main talking point.”

Comments

No comments on this item Please log in to comment by clicking here