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Chesapeake Oyster Reefs, Their Importance, Destruction and Guidelines for Restoring Them
Hargis, William Haven, Dexter
Hargis, William
Haven, Dexter
Abstract
The eastern oyster, Crassostrea virginica (Gmelin), can live any place in coastal marine and estuarine waters of the North American east coast offering suitable setting and survival opportunities. It occurs singly or in small clumps scattered widely but thrives best in colonial aggregations which, like those of tropical corals, are truly reefs. The massive self-renewing oyster reefs (“whole banks and beds”) reported by early Chesapeake observers have yielded much. Without readily accessible oyster reefs the first English colonists of Jamestown might have starved. Without them the rich oyster industries of later years could never have developed. But oyster reefs benefitted the oysters that built and maintained them as well as the humans using them.
The oyster reefs of the Chesapeake region, including those on Seaside, developed during some 7,000-6,000 years of Bay evolution during the current (Holocene) Epoch. Until about 200 years ago reef oyster populations were able to maintain themselves and their reef habitats and withstand the inroads of biological enemies, other natural hazards and increasing harvests. By the late 1800s, Chesapeake public market oyster harvests had peaked and total market harvests and the oyster populations which provided them were in decline.
Continued overharvesting had done more than reduce harvestable populations. It had reduced broodstock fecundity and the genetic qualities of the various Chesapeake subpopulations as well. Further, it had diminished natural shell replacement due to excessive removal of shell-producing oysters and their shells, causing reef destruction. Additionally, removal of shells for landfill, road building, construction, chemical production, soil conditioning and poultry grit hastened that destruction. The synergistic cycle of population reduction and habitat destruction accelerated. Today many formerly-productive reefs are mere remnants (or totally obliterated—even eliminated) and Chesapeake public (aided or unaided) market oyster production is far less than one percent of its maximum.
If the trend of decline of self-sustaining natural oyster production is to be reversed, public oyster reefs must be restored. Proven guidelines exist. Such factors as location, geometry and materials have been naturally tested over time. The features which developed during the millennia of successful natural oyster reef evolutionary trial-and-error should be employed in well-planned reef-restoration activities. Where improvement is possible it should be done.
An effective reef restoration program will benefit not only the oyster resource, the public owners, the industry and consumers but the Bay’s ecology and finfishermen as well. Active oyster reefs harbor many epifaunal and infaunal organisms, increasing overall estuarine productivity and diversity. Further, they attract finfishes and other browsers and predators. Sportfishing charts identify many formerly-productive oyster reefs as fishing spots. This is no accident! More importantly, better utilization of H. L. Mencken’s immense “protein factory” and restoration of such filtering and cleansing capabilities of reef oyster populations and their associates as may occur will benefit all Chesapeake citizens and others region- and nation-wide.
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1999
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Virginia Institute of Marine Science
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HargisHaven.PDF
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Natural Resources