Your Oysters In Maryland's Restoration

Community-based oyster restoration programs are one important element in widespread efforts to restore populations devastated by overfishing, habitat destruction, land runoff, pollution, and oyster disease. While disease continues to pose major problems to oyster survival, scientific research on disease management and developing disease-resistant oyster stocks hold promise for future restoration programs.

The Chesapeake Bay was once home to the most bountiful oyster stocks in North America. While that bounty will not be restored quickly, the new restoration efforts on the part of citizens, private organizations and public agencies represent a commitment to a resource that was once thought to be unrecoverable.

As an oyster gardener, you will be doing your part for Maryland's oyster restoration effort. Each year, you will receive 2,000 to 4,000 hatchery-reared seed oysters. After a year's growth, the Chesapeake Bay Foundation will collect the oysters, and they will be planted on prepared sanctuary sites. Those oysters should eventually serve as broodstock for new generations of oysters. In this way, the oysters that you rear year after year will help contribute to sustainable oyster populations in the Chesapeake Bay ecosystem.

Some Useful Web Sites

• Chesapeake Bay Foundation (CBF)
  CBF's Oyster Gardening
  
  
• Maryland Sea Grant
  Oysters and the Chesapeake
  Maryland Sea Grant Oyster Disease Program
  
  
• Maryland Marine Notes
  Oyster Reefs: Key to Restoring Bay Grasses? (Jan-Feb 2001)
  Oyster Sanctuaries: An Ecological Approach to Restoration (Jul-Aug 1999)
  A Question of Survival: Helping Oysters Overcome Disease (Jan-Feb 1997)
  Planting Oysters in the Chesapeake (Sep-Oct 1996)
  The New Oyster Wars: Battling Disease in the Lab and Bay (Summer 1995)
  
  
• Horn Point Laboratory
  Oyster Hatchery at Horn Point Laboratory
  
  
• Chesapeake Bay Oyster Corps
  
  
• Virginia Institute of Marine Science (VIMS)
  VIMS' Oyster Reef
  
  

For Further Information, Contact:

This page was last modified October 17, 2012

The Oyster Gardening Program is a cooperative effort of the Oyster Alliance
Chesapeake Bay Foundation ~ Maryland Sea Grant Extension Program
University of Maryland Center for Environmental Science ~ Oyster Recovery Partnership

This page is part of Maryland Sea Grant's Oyster web site.

For more information, report problems or provide comments, please contact webmaster@mdsg.umd.edu