New Hatchery to Help Restore Native Olympia Oysters in Puget Sound

Puget Sound's Native Olympia Oyster

(Maggie Freeman)



Restoration of Washington's native Olympia oysters, at less than 4% of their historic levels, took a step forward with the opening of the Kenneth K. Chew Center for Shellfish Research and Restoration hatchery. As part of a 10 year plan, the hatchery will focus on providing tribes and agencies a seed source to help rebuild the native population which was brought to near extinction from overharvesting and pollution.

Native Olympia (l) and Pacific (r)

 

Sea Grant: Restoration efforts at risk from non-native Pacific oyster

While the native Olympia oyster has shown signs of being able to adapt to lower pH levels ("ocean acidification") a larger challenge to restoration efforts may be found in the non-native Pacific oyster, introduced from Japan by the shellfish industry. The ability of the latter to grow quickly made it a more favorable "crop." However, this same ability has also caused Sea Grant to question whether the Pacific oyster presents a risk to the restoration efforts currently taking place in California. In a July 2, 2013 article, they noted the Pacific oyster "... has taken up residence in San Diego’s bays and lagoons and may be in the early stages of a full-fledged, non-native species invasion." The article went further and noted:

The traits that make it so suited to culture could also make it a formidable invader..."Our worry is that native oyster restoration efforts may backfire and we will end up creating habitat for the invasive oyster,” said Danielle Zacherl, a professor at Cal State Fullerton, who has been documenting the Pacific oyster’s spread in San Diego and Orange counties and is involved in native oyster bed restoration in Southern California.

For an earlier post on the Sea Grant article, see "Sea Grant: Pacific Oysters "may be in the early stages of a full-fledged, non-native species invasion."