TILLAMOOK A native oyster that cleans the water and provides habitat for marine plants and fish is making a comeback at Netarts Bay southwest of Tillamook.

Overharvesting in the 1800s nearly wiped out the native Olympia oysters,?said Dick Vander Schaaf, associate director of coast and marine conservation of the Nature Conservancy in Oregon. To stay in business and provide food for our tables, commercial oyster growers imported a nonnative oyster, known as the Pacific oyster from Japan.

In 2005, The Nature Conservancy partnered with the Whiskey Creek Shellfish Hatchery to bring back the Olympia oysters the only native oyster in the West.

To feed on algae, each silver-dollar sized creatures filter up to 25 gallons of water a day,?said Vander Schaaf. Their filtering effectively cleans the water. When you multiply 25 gallons by a million oysters, you get a very powerful filtration system on your hands. Plus, their shells form reefs which provide a home for marine life including juvenile salmon and starry flounder.

The Whiskey Creek Shellfish Hatchery played a role in supporting the restoration effort.

When we heard about the Conservancys idea of recovering the native oyster back to the Oregon Coast, we jumped in to help by offering our equipment and support on the front end, said Sue Cudd, owner of Whiskey Creek Shellfish Hatchery. Bringing back the natives will be a win for all of us by producing jobs in our community and building resilient bays and estuaries.

Using techniques perfected with the hatchery, the Nature Conservancy started reintroducing young oysters eight years ago. Every spring, with the help of volunteers, adult oysters are dumped into huge tanks. Free-swimming larvae are collected as they are released from the adults. The larvae are fed in the hatchery until they are ready to settle. Mesh bags filled with clean oyster shells are placed in the tanks and the mature larvae attach themselves to the shells. Then, the shell bags are transported to Netarts Bay, where the young oysters mature into adults.

 Its taken eight years, but now were seeing the fruits of our labor, said Vander Schaaf. Young Olympia oysters have been spotted in several places around Netarts Bay. This is a sign of success for our efforts. While we celebrate, we recognize we have a lot of restoration work to do.

The goal is to place enough oysters in suitable habitats that they can maintain a self-sustaining population. The Olympia oyster is becoming so popular that oyster growers are beginning to plant them for commercial harvest. Soon they will be gracing menus in west coast oyster bars.

Olympia oysters are sweet and packed with flavor, said Jin Soo Yang, executive kitchen chef at Bamboo Sushi in Portland. The burst of flavor that you get comes as a surprise, because theyre so petite. They also draw certain flavors from wine and sake because of the way the high mineral content affects the palate.

 

More info.

The Nature Conservancy is a conservation organization working around the world to protect ecologically important lands and waters for nature and people. To date, the Conservancy and its more than one million members have helped protect 130 million acres worldwide.

To learn more about The Nature Conservancy in Oregon, visit nature.org/oregon.