Oysterman Raymond Graham 

 agrees. Last year he harvested 25 

 bushels of oysters from the Newport 

 River before 10 a.m. on opening day 

 for the harvest. This year, it took him 

 five hours to come up with four 

 bushels. 



Newport River oystermen say the 

 mortality figures for their area are 

 much higher than the estimated state 

 figure of 50 percent. They believe 

 more than 90 percent of the oyster 

 crop there is dead. 



As proof, on a recent December 

 morning, Mill Creek fisherman 

 David Oglesby pulled up a tongful of 

 oyster shells from public bottom in 

 the Newport River. Only two oysters 

 were alive; the rest were empty 

 shells. 



Marshall says this may not be the 

 first time Dermo has struck oyster 

 beds in the Newport River. He be- 

 lieves the state has had outbreaks of 

 Dermo before, but it simply wasn't 

 identified. In 1981, for example, large 

 numbers of oysters in the river died. 

 Then, the mortalities were attributed 

 to environmental conditions. 



And interestingly enough, Mar- 

 shall says, those environmental con- 

 ditions were the same conditions 

 under which Dermo is thriving now. 

 The hotter and saltier the water, the 

 better for Dermo and MSX. 



"Those situations would be tough 

 on an oyster anyway,' ' Marshall says. 

 "The stress of that, coupled with the 

 parasitic protozoan in the system, 

 causes a lot of mortality." 



In the Chesapeake Bay where Der- 

 mo and MSX have ravaged oyster 

 beds, scientists agree that Dermo is 

 more of a problem. 



When it rains and salinities drop 

 below 10 parts of salt per thousand 

 parts of water, MSX is quickly elim- 

 inated, says Eugene Burreson, a biol- 

 ogist at the College of William and 

 Mary's Virginia Institute of Marine 

 Science. 



"But Dermo doesn't get eliminated 

 or killed," he says. "It just sits there 

 and redevelops when salinities go 

 back up.' ' 



"Dermo is much more of a long- 

 term problem than MSX," Burreson 

 says. 



Scientists aren't sure how Dermo 

 and MSX got into North Carolina 

 waters. Some believe the parasites 

 have always been present, just 

 waiting for the right conditions. 



Dermo has killed oysters in Atlan- 

 tic and Gulf of Mexico waters. MSX 

 has been recorded from Maine to 

 Florida. 



And although the two parasites 

 cause similar results — death of oys- 

 ters — they are very different organ- 

 isms, Burreson says. 



Dermo is a slow killer, Burreson 

 says. Usually an oyster has to be in- 

 fected with Dermo for a year to 18 

 months before mortalities begin to 

 occur. 



The mollusks probably ingest Der- 

 mo as they are filtering water for 

 food. Eventually, the parasite spreads 

 throughout the oyster's system, over- 

 whelming it until it finally wastes 

 away. 



Burreson believes that since 

 shellfish beds were closed last year 

 because of red tide, the denser 

 populations may have contributed to 

 the spread of Dermo this year. 



MSX deals a swifter blow to oys- 

 ters, killing in five to six months. 



But so far, facts about how MSX 

 enters the oysters have eluded 

 scientists. 



MSX, or multinucleate sphere x 

 for unknown, was first spotted in 

 Delaware Bay in 1957. Because re- 

 searchers couldn't identify it, they 

 named it for its spherical shape and 

 numerous nuclei. 



Now, 30 years later, scientists are 

 still baffled. They haven't been able 

 to culture the parasite in a laboratory, 

 and they still aren't sure how it at- 

 tacks oysters. 



Some scientists believe other ma- 

 rine animals may carry MSX and 

 transfer it to oysters. But they haven't 

 been able to identify the carriers. 



At Rutgers University Shellfish Re- 

 search Laboratory, researchers are 

 breeding oysters that show some 

 resistance to MSX, says biologist 

 Susan Ford. The oysters are pro- 

 duced by selectively breeding sur- 

 vivors of MSX infections. 



These oysters may offer some hope 

 to fishermen with private leases. 



But until researchers find more 

 clues and answers about how to con- 

 trol Dermo and MSX, they say the 

 only thing to do is hope for wetter 

 weather. 



