The situation is so bleak that federal and state officials are weighing whether to introduce disease- resistant Asian oysters in an effort to restore the bay's oyster population, both for its ecological and commercial value.
'Outgrowing' disease
While the diseases continue to limit the bay's oyster population, experts say they have figured out ways to cultivate the native bivalves in oyster farms so they can evade the diseases and begin to rebuild the industry.
Some entrepreneurs are growing oysters on floating racks rather than on the bottom. Others are trying chemically sterilized oysters. In both cases, the oysters essentially outgrow the diseases, reaching market size before they die. Raising oysters farther up creeks and rivers also seems to help, since the diseases are more virulent in the salty water nearer the ocean.
"The disease is not less of a threat, but they're figuring out ways to get around it," says Doug Lipton, a University of Maryland economist who specializes in the seafood industry.
Given the modest successes to date, experts are encouraging watermen to try the new techniques, all of which involve cultivating oysters rather than foraging for wild ones. It's been a tough sell. Maryland watermen traditionally have resisted aquaculture, fearing that they would be forced off the water by large corporations laying claim to vast stretches of the bay for raising oysters.
But with the bay's wild oyster stock showing no signs of rebounding, and with crabbing squeezed as well, some are now willing to give aquaculture a try.
The patch of creek bottom leased by the watermen's association has not grown any wild oysters in some time. Last year, using $7,000 chipped in by about 25 of the group's members, the men bought shells from a Virginia shucking house and put them on the bottom. Then they bought millions of baby oysters, or spat, from the University of Maryland's hatchery at Horn Point on the Eastern Shore and dropped them overboard to grow on the shells. The group put another batch in the creek a few months ago, spat produced at Morgan State University's bay laboratory north of Solomons.
Jetmore's tongs pull up some shells with small, purplish bumps on them showing the growth of baby oysters. In a couple of years, if all goes well, they should be 2 to 3 inches across - large enough to harvest for eating.
In all, about 10 million tiny oysters have been "planted" on the watermen's leased seven-acre tract.
