Virginia Coastal Zone Management - Spring/Summer 2007
Virginia CZM Oyster Restoration and Education Web page and VSHP Website - status of oyster restoration on the seaside of Virginia's Eastern Shore
The Rap on Oysters
By Laura McKay, Coastal Program Manager
A painful, awkward silence fell over the small group of managers, scientists, watermen, businessmen and environmentalists gathered at the Chesapeake Bay National Estuarine Research Reserve at VIMS on January 25, 2007. As the meeting facilitator, I truly did not know what to say.
An Icy Silence
We, the vestiges of our Virginia Oyster Heritage Program who began with such hope and gusto in 1999, had been asked by the Marine Resources Commission to reconvene to develop a plan for managing the beleaguered oysters in the Rappahannock River that we had tried to restore. After an hour of scientist/manager discussion about where we had built sanctuary reefs, whether biomass was actually increasing on adjacent but closed harvest areas, where circulation patterns may be carrying baby oysters before they attach to hard shell, how many oysters die from the diseases MSX and Dermo and how just plain hard it has been to accomplish any increase in oyster populations, the watermen finally spoke up. Their frustration and anger was unleashed. “Why”, they asked, “don’t you just stop spending taxpayers’ money and leave us alone? Let us manage the Rappahannock by ourselves.” So yes, that’s when the awkward silence chilled us just as uncomfortably as the snow beginning to fall outside.
I believe some in the room would have liked nothing better than to get up and leave at that point – the chill outside preferable to that inside. Leaving behind their years of struggles with the seemingly doomed Virginia oyster might be a relief and free up time to work on more tractable issues.
But to everyone’s credit, they all stayed. The silence was finally broken by two questions. “Do we have an upper size limit on oysters?” asked a retired businessman. “What about a rotational harvest system like they have for sea scallops on Georges Bank off the New England coast?” asked a scientist. It seemed as if the snow outside had entered the room and transformed to magic fairy dust. Suddenly everyone was leaning forward in their chairs and talking!
Perhaps the key change was the recognition among all of us that “ecological restoration” of the native oyster is a very lofty goal right now given the severe disease and predation constraints on oysters. Perhaps we need to first see whether we can even maintain a small oyster fishery. Even if oysters are harvested, they have provided their water filtering and spawning benefits to the public for at least 2 years. But we have kept the entire lower Rappahannock closed to harvesting for many years hoping to see an increase in total oyster biomass. But how long would everyone wait? Patience had already worn more than thin among the watermen. They’ve wanted the lower Rappahannock re-opened for at least 5 years.
Although there are some large oysters (3-4 year olds that may be disease-resistant “genetic gold” that should not be harvested but left alone to reproduce), most of the oysters die from disease and predation. And so each year, in front of the Virginia Marine Resources Commission, there has been a huge battle between the watermen and the scientists/managers about when the lower Rappahannock could be re-opened for harvest.
A New Plan for the Rappahanock
This new idea of a rotational harvest plan gave some hope to the watermen. If we divide the Rappahannock into areas that each contain broodstock sanctuary reefs and rotate harvests among these areas such that each area would be left alone for two years and then harvested in a third year, and we impose an upper size limit so that any oysters harvested that might be 4 years old or larger must be returned to the water, could we attain some measure of conservation and also some vestige of a commercial fishery? And what might all of that cost?
The basic concept was presented to the Virginia Blue Ribbon Panel on Oysters on March 19 by Dr. Jim Wesson of the Virginia Marine Resources Commission. The panel was very pleased with the concept and anxious to have it replicated throughout the coastal zone. But there are more details to work out over the summer such as the exact dividing lines between the areas (which will depend on water circulation modeling data from VIMS) and exactly how to protect the larger oysters and what, if any gear restrictions or changes in licensing and entry into the fishery should also be considered. Also, we need to exercise caution about costs and benefits, and who pays.
To begin to get a handle on these economics, the Virginia CZM Program is funding a small grant this summer to document the costs associated with this plan. The Marine Resources Commission will consider adoption of this new Rappahannock plan at their September 25, 2007 meeting before the next oyster harvesting season begins. Later in the year, Virginia CZM hopes to fund a follow-up study of the estimated benefits of the plan. Our hope is that all of our marine science and economic data will guide us toward the best possible decision for everyone involved in this public resource.
