A story in today's WaPo lauds the efforts of a few Marylanders who are taking care of and returning to the Chesapeake Bay a few million oyster larvae in an program to revive the oyster industry in the bay.
I haven't thought of oysters much since the Divine Mrs. M and I lived on the eastern shore for a year back in the late 70s. At the time, my uncle was a waterman on the Bay and that meant he alternately fished for crabs in the summer and oysters in the fall and winter months. The industry was already in decline when he moved from Long Island to the little town of Rumbley, Md. in the late 1960s. He managed to make a living on the crab and oyster business until he retired, but the handwriting was on the wall.
Feel good programs like Marylanders Grow Oysters are all well and good, but the underlying causes of the decline of the Bay; overfishing, pollution and climate change are not going to be solved by a few retirees raising a oyster spat.
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