May 28, 2020 — A couple of centuries ago, oysters were ridiculously prevalent in the Chesapeake Bay, which stretches nearly 200 miles from Havre de Grace, Maryland to Virginia Beach, Virginia. At that time, more than 17 million bushels of everyone’s favorite bivalve were pulled from its waters every year, but that number has since dropped by 98 percent due to a depressing combination of overfishing, degradation of their habitats, and water pollution.
But part of the Chesapeake Bay Foundation’s mission to “Save the Bay” includes a number of oyster restoration programs, including small-scale oyster farming and “oyster gardening,” which allows amateur aquaculturists to spend a year caring for baby oysters, which are then transplanted onto protected reefs when they’re a year old. These restored reefs not only help to increase the oyster population, but they also provide food and shelter for a variety of fish and other marine life.