LEFT TO RIGHT: A DMF-sponsored drop-off site for oyster shells in Brunswick County. • CCCs shell-recycling truck uses a special winch to lift heavy cans off the ground. • Brian Woodard's 



such as student or senior citizen groups. 



"That's how the project has to evolve to maintain itself," says 

 Philip "Skip" Kemp, project organizer and aquaculture program 

 coordinator at CCC. "Part of what this project does is educate people 

 about the importance of putting the shells back into the environment 

 rather than into the driveway or the dump." 



RAISING A ROBUST RESOURCE 



Oysters are vital to maintaining healthy marine ecosystems. 

 A single oyster can filter up to 50 gallons of water a day, cleansing the 

 water column of excess plankton and detritus. Oyster reefs also provide 

 habitat for a multitude of organisms, including algae, worms, barnacles, 

 crabs and fish. 



A prosperous fishery in North Carolina during the late 19th 

 and early 20th centuries, Eastern oyster populations have since been 

 pummeled by overharvest, habitat loss, water pollution and disease. 

 Today, oysters are listed as a "species of concern" by the DMF, and 

 commercial landings in 2004 totaled about 69,500 bushels, a fraction of 

 the record 1.8 million bushels landed in 1902. 



"Most of the oysters being served in North Carolina are from out 

 of state," Heath points out. 



In 2001 , the N.C. Marine Fisheries Commission adopted a 

 fishery management plan designed to help restore the state's Eastern 

 oyster populations. DMF began establishing no-take oyster sanctuaries 

 throughout the Pamlico Sound, and in 2003 the N.C. Oyster Shell 

 Recycling Program was bom. 



Besides helping DMF better acquire shell material for sanctuaries, 

 aquaculture researchers at CCC saw another opportunity to help with 

 oyster restoration efforts: provide 



state sanctuaries with "seeded" "Disease isn 't nearly as big of a problem as the overharvesting of oysters 



oyster shells, or shells with juvenile Overharvest and mismanagement caused the oysters to go away — 



oysters already attached. when you take away oysters, you take away shell for future crops. " 



CCC researchers plan to _ phj | ip » skjp » femp 



select large oysters from the wild 

 and breed them in aquaculture facilities, hoping the offspring will have 

 better disease resistance. 



"If you find large oysters [in nature], you assume they've been 

 challenged by disease," Kemp says. CCCs hatchery already has 

 several six-inch oysters from Stump Sound they plan to breed. 



"Hopefully, those oysters will incorporate those robust genes back 



into the gene pool," explains Hardy. 



But there are no guarantees, says Don Meritt, a Maryland Sea 

 Grant aquaculture specialist who runs the oyster hatchery program at 

 the University of Maryland's Center for Environmental Sciences. 



" 'Resistance' does not mean immunity to disease," he explains. 

 "As a population, they will live longer, but even those oysters will 

 eventually succumb to disease." 



Breeding oysters for disease resistance originally was developed 

 in aquaculture circles to help oysters in hatcheries reach market size 

 and be sold, he explains. Such efforts usually involved gathering wild 

 oysters and exposing them to disease. Those that survived had greater 

 resistance, and were bred again. 



Researchers at the CCC hatchery will not conduct such a selection 

 program among its wild oysters. Instead, they hope nature already has 

 taken care of that. Regardless of how the disease-resistant oysters are 

 selected, their offspring are hardly a panacea for the ailing species. 



"The question of whether you can take these superior genetic 

 features and infuse them into wild populations remains to be seen," 

 says Meritt. 



Some small-scale experiments in Virginia have shown that 

 disease-resistant oysters placed in the wild have propagated, but 

 it is extremely difficult to determine their effects on surrounding 

 populations, says Stan Allen, director of the Aquaculture Genetics and 

 Breeding Technology Center at the Virginia Institute of Marine Science 

 (VIMS). 



Allen describes using disease-resistant oysters in restoration 

 as "almost like an act of desperation." He fears that losses from 

 overharvesting and habitat degradation already may be too great for the 



species to overcome. 



Kemp concurs. "Disease 

 isn't nearly as big of a problem 

 as the overharvesting of 

 oysters. Overharvest and 

 mismanagement caused the 

 when you take away oysters, you take away shell 



oysters to go away - 

 for future crops." 



A more sustainable option, he suggests, involves using 

 aquaculture to produce oysters for seafood markets. Shell recycling and 

 restoration efforts should be focused on no-take sanctuaries rather than 

 areas for commercial harvest, he adds. 



16 AUTUMN 2005 



