Boy, was I missing out. Or I should say boy, girl, boy. Oysters are usually male when they are young, then at around 2 years of age, most of them become female with 90% of them achieving this gender change by the time they are three years old. Older, wiser, female, of course! Indeed, it is known that since it takes more energy and space to make eggs versus sperm, larger oysters tend to be females. Later in life, if there are not enough males in the population, some females will become males again. (The sacrifices that women make for their families!)
And have you ever wondered if those scrumptious raw, live oysters on the half shell feel any pain as they slide down into your acidic gut? Even with all the scientific advances we have made, I'm not sure anyone can absolutely answer that question, and my appetite overrules my ethics on this one.
Of more concern, I did not know that the oyster population worldwide has been in severe decline. The oyster's demise has occurred for many reasons including overharvesting, disease, water pollution, and rising water temperatures.
Results of a study performed by scientists in 2011 estimated that 85 percent of the world's oyster reef habitat has been lost. In the Chesapeake Bay, the oyster population is less than 1% of what it used to be! There are accounts of oysters being so abundant in the Chesapeake long ago that banks of them would protrude above the surface of the water, and ships had to navigate carefully to avoid these oyster reefs. Able to grow untouched, oysters were not only prosperous, they were also much larger than the oysters of today. One of the early colonial settlers wrote in 1612 of seeing oysters "some thirteen inches long."
Oysters are filter feeders, basically acting as mini water purifiers as water flows through their gill systems. A healthy adult oyster can filter over one gallon of water per hour. Scientists have estimated that in the 1600s, the oysters in the Chesapeake Bay would filter all the water in the Bay once per week. As a result, the water in the Bay at that time is believed to have been of very high water quality and clear with visibility in some places up to twenty feet (difficult to imagine as I look at the murky, brown water of the Bay today). With the current oyster population, it now takes a year instead of a week to filter all the water in the Bay. Moreover, loss of oyster reef habitat has contributed to declining populations of other marine life, including fish and crabs.
Okay, this is all very sad, and I am feeling guilty for those gluttonous meals at Drago's.
Luckily, I learned today that there is a hope for the oyster and for the Chesapeake Bay. Our dear hosts, Faith and Andy, live in a house known as The Oyster House. Watermen using the house would load oysters right into the building. There is apparently a slight slant to the floors of the house, built this way to allow water to drain as the floors were hosed down each day.
Most significantly, The Oyster House is located on the Great Wicomico River, a "trap estuary" that recirculates its water, giving oyster larvae higher odds of settling and growing on a reef.
The Great Wicomico is home to a thus far successful, major oyster restoration project (started in 2004, led by researchers at the Virginia Institute of Marine Science, and funded by the Army Corps of Engineers). The restoration project's accomplishments are due partly to the river's recirculation properties, partly to the large scale of the reefs built and partly to the nature of the reefs built (some are "high-relief" elevated reefs less prone to being buried by sediment).
On a smaller scale, waterfront homeowners such as Faith and Andy, are contributing to the collective success of oyster reef growth that is occurring in the Great Wicomico. Faith and Andy are oyster gardeners, growing oysters on floats off of their dock and ensuring that shells are thrown back into the river to increase habitat. There are apparently more than 2,000 oyster gardeners in Virginia and Maryland with many oyster gardening workshops and associations around to support them.
We felt super fortunate to have Andy take us out to his floats today where he taught us about oysters, their life cycle, and how to raise them. The girls enjoyed the lesson, and loved helping Andy harvest oysters from the floats for us to eat later. Oh boy, oh girl, oh boy!
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| These oyster floats lie in water just off Andy's dock. The floats are left in the water year-round. |
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| Baby oysters are called spat and are the size of a small fingernail. |
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| Andy shovels oysters from the float. |
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| Take only the big ones and leave the little ones to grow. |
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| Oyster gardening is a win-win situation: cleaner water, oysters to eat -- oops! I guess the oyster loses. |
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| Sea otters and dogs also love to prey on the oysters. |
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| It's mostly low maintenance gardening, but algae does have to occasionally be cleaned from the floats. |
WHERE WE ARE: The Oyster House, Great Wicomico River
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| Faith is an accomplished painter with a beautiful studio. |
SPECIAL THANKS TO
1. Faith and Andy for yummy oysters, for canceling their church trip at such short notice in order to spend time with us, for helping Jamey with getting the boat hauled and setting him up with necessary tools, and especially for welcoming us with such incredible hospitality into their homes and lives!
2. Janet and Gary for their never-ending support and encouragement of our crazy missions, for the loan of C. Spirit for our use (and abuse!), and especially for their friendship and love!
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| Boat ride with Andy, Grammy and Grampy! |
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| Croquet! |
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| The Great Wicomico River |
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