Maryland planted an annual record of almost 1.8 billion juvenile oysters this year in its portion of the Chesapeake Bay, Democratic Gov. Wes Moore announced in October. He said it demonstrated the success of the state’s partnership with watermen, nonprofits, academic institutions and federal agencies in rebuilding the state’s oyster population.
Of the total, 1 billion young oysters were placed in sanctuaries in the five Bay tributaries the state has targeted for large-scale oyster restoration. Since 2014, the state has planted almost 7 billion oysters after committing to restore oyster reefs in Harris Creek and the Manokin, St. Mary’s, Tred Avon and Little Choptank rivers.
Those oysters were mainly produced by the large hatchery in Cambridge run by the Horn Point Laboratory of the University of Maryland Center for Environmental Science. Other participants providing technical, financial or logistical support included the Oyster Recovery Partnership, U.S. Army Corps of Engineers and the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration.
Oysters planted in other sanctuaries, privately leased areas and public oyster grounds came from a collaboration with multiple groups — nonprofits such as the Chesapeake Bay Foundation, Severn River Association and ShoreRivers, watermen’s associations and several private producers. Participants in the state’s Marylanders Grow Oysters program and similar initiatives joined in raising hatchery-spawned oysters for the plantings.
About 212 million post-larval oysters, or spat, went into sanctuaries in Eastern Bay as part of a new restoration project there, while nearly 113 million got planted in smaller sanctuaries in Anne Arundel and Queen Anne’s counties. And more than 455 million oysters were planted on grounds open for commercial harvest throughout state waters.
“It took three decades to plant 10 billion oysters in Maryland,” noted Ward Slacum, executive director of the Oyster Recovery Partnership, “and half of that was completed in the last decade.”
This article was originally published on BayJournal.com and is republished with permission.