Maryland Oysters: Worse Than We Thought

Well, not really much worse than I thought

A new scientific study recommends halting all commercial harvest of oysters in Maryland, warning that the ecologically important bivalves are even more depleted than previously believed and that continuing to catch them risks eliminating them altogether from much of the upper Chesapeake Bay.

The study, led by researchers with the University of Maryland Center for Environmental Science, concludes that the oyster population in Maryland's portion of the bay has dwindled because of overfishing, habitat loss and disease to just 0.3 percent of what it was before intensive commercial harvesting began in the late 1800s. That's even lower than the estimate of 1 percent remaining that officials have been using for years.

While the harvest of oysters has plummeted over the decades to a fraction of what it was, the remaining watermen are still taking too many, the scientists said.

"Habitat degradation and disease are a problem — it's just that fishing on top of that compounds the problem," said Michael Wilberg, a fisheries scientist with the Chesapeake Biological Laboratory in Solomons and lead author of the study. Funded largely by the state Department of Natural Resources, the research was published Wednesday in the journal Marine Ecology Progress Series...

Stop harvesting wild oysters! NOW!