U.S. industry banks on Asian oyster
By Ken Valenti
Westchester (N.Y.) Journal News
NORWALK, Conn. — Romantic can describe a lot of things. Being asked to reproduce under harsh laboratory lights isn't one of them.
Stephen Schmitt • Gannett News Service
But when the determined scientists at Sargent's Cove hatchery in Norwalk try to get oysters to do that oyster thing, they use the oldest tricks in the book — food and a relaxing bath.
Geoff Denham, chief scientific officer at Sargent's Cove hatchery in Norwalk, Conn., looks over some of the 250 oysters used as brood stock at the hatchery. Hatchery-spawned oysters have become big business.
Labor-intensive as it may be, convincing oysters to reproduce in a lab setting is big business. Take Maryland, where the devastation of the oyster population in Chesapeake Bay is so extensive that Gov. Robert Ehrlich has floated a controversial proposal to plant a foreign species — the Asian suminoe — in a last-ditch attempt to revive the industry.
Environmental officials and oyster harvesters along Long Island Sound, also hit by declining oyster populations, are finding some success using less-extreme methods. They are using native species to help revive a bivalve population struck by devastating diseases with names like Dermo and MSX, which first arose in the late 1970s.
At the same time, the Long Island oyster watchers are keeping a close eye on Maryland's plan, with some concern that planting Asian oysters in Maryland might affect oysters in the sound.
Hatchery oysters are safe from the predators, whims of nature and — it is hoped — from diseases that have ravaged oyster harvests in the past.
"A hatchery will never replace Mother Nature, but it might give you a little steadier market," said David Hopp, 56, whose family has been harvesting oysters in the sound for five generations. He works for Hillard E. Bloom Oyster Co. in Norwalk. The company began the hatchery as a joint venture with a local businessman.
Bringing back oysters, both as succulent appetizers and as a sea animal that helps keep brine clean, is a common goal along the East Coast. But the Maryland plan to jump-start the oyster industry with Asian suminoes is one devised for a dire situation.
Since the 1960s, the oyster population has struggled with diseases in Chesapeake Bay, according to the Maryland Department of Natural Resources. Last year set a third consecutive low-harvest record for Maryland's lower bay, when just 25,000 bushels of oysters were harvested. That compares with some 25 million bushels harvested each year in the 1970s, according to the state.
Long Island Sound's oyster problems struck when Dermo and MSX migrated north in a warming climate. From a high of 8.2 million pounds in 1993, the oyster harvest in Connecticut waters dropped to 1.4 million pounds by 1998, according to the National Marine Fisheries Service. In 2003, landings had fallen to 279,414 pounds, up slightly from the year before.
"It was pretty dramatic at the time for us," Hopp said of the late 1990s. "It just was a big hit all at once. It was tough at the time. But it's bouncing back. ... Most of the people went back and just cut back and did their clamming instead of oystering."
Last year, Sargent's Cove turned out 11 million oysters, the cove's chief scientific officer Geoff Denham said. The goal is to increase that to 30 million a year, he said.
Along Long Island Sound, the level of alarm over Maryland's plan is relatively low. Denham said it would take years, if not decades, for larval Asian oysters to work their way up the coast, if they could do so at all.
Tom O'Connell of Maryland's Natural Resources Department said the Asian oysters could be placed in the bay this summer if the process goes smoothly.
If they are planted in Chesapeake Bay, he said, "It's probably just a matter of time before these animals disperse along the coast, within their environmental tolerances."
