Oyster Blog — Oyster World

Chesapeake Bay: The oyster native to the East Coast, Crassostrea virginica, hasn't been doing well in the Chesapeake for a while. Reasons for the virginica's decline include overharvesting, pollution, and disease. The loss of the native oyster reefs has hurt the Bay's shellfish industry and ecosystem, as oysters filter algae out of the seawater and provide habitat for numerous other species. For the past couple of years, government officials have been moving forward with a plan to introduce a Chinese oyster, C. ariakensis, which appears to be resistant to the diseases that have decimated the native oyster populations. The ariakensis...

What made Conde Nast Traveler's list of ways to behave gluttonously in Vegas? That's right. A Hama Hama oyster shooter. As the magazine puts it: Save the Hama-Hama shooter, a cocktail-like concoction of citrus ponzu, sake, scallions, daikon, and raw quail yolk, for last. Of course, savvy Vegas visitors will wait until October to indulge in raw oyster shooters....

The oyster is taking over the world! Read below to learn more about the brash bivalve's cultural conquests (and our attempts to explain them). 1. Oyster Magazine (Australia). Oysters have a reputation for being sexy and they definitely have cutting-edge qualities. They've also moved beyond gender: they start out male but switch sexes several times during their lives. But as for their hip fashion sense???? Although occasionally an oyster will doll itself up with accessories such as drill snail egg carcasses and seaweed, the jury's still out on whether this qualifies as high-fashion.  2. Oyster Card (London) This one was...

This morning KUOW, a Seattle public radio station, ran a special on a wild reef of Olympia Oysters that scientists have discovered off the coast of Vancouver Island. Scientists from all over the world are studying the reef to try to learn more about the Olympia oyster, and how to help it recover. From the broadcast: THE SCIENTISTS ARE EXCITED BY THE NUMBERS OF OLYMPIA OYSTERS HERE: IT'S THE HIGHEST KNOWN DENSITY OF WILD OLYMPIA OYSTERS IN THE WORLD. THEY THINK THIS BED IS AS HEALTHY AS IT WAS HUNDREDS OF YEARS AGO. Read the story here.

Strange happenings in the world of oyster aquaculture: 1. Today's LA Times ran an article about the West Coast's V. tubiashii outbreak that is worth reading. Among other interesting things we learned from the article: the fact that the bacteria can be wind-dispersed, "launched into the air by bubbles bursting at the ocean's surface." 2. Turmoil in the French oyster industry. Something (a virus? warm water temperatures?) is killing juvenile oysters in France, which is the fourth-largest oyster producer in the world, behind China, Japan, and South Korea. Some farmers have lost between 40 to 100 percent of their oysters...