Oyster Blog — Oysters

We've never noticed before how colorful Olympia oyster shells are. They're full of earth tones: browns, deep purples, and mossy greens. There are places on the farm where Olympias are abundant. They live on and amongst the larger Pacific oysters. These particular Olys had the misfortune to be attached to Pacific oysters that came up to shore to be shucked. We pried about 50 of them off the Pacifics, ate a couple, and put the rest out on the beach. If you're at all interested in learning more about the history of the Olympia oyster, we highly recommend Rowan Jacobsen's...

It's been hot and dry for weeks, the water has warmed up, and the oysters are starting to spawn.  And this is actually a really good thing, because although we do buy oyster seed, we rely on natural "sets" to maintain the farm's oyster population and genetic diversity. As Teresa puts it, the fact that the estuary is right now glowing fluorescent white with oyster spawn is "job security." To clarify: it's the spawn that looks tropical, not the Canal. Normally the Canal is a dark, beautiful blue. The fertilized eggs will form larvae and swim around in the Canal...

The flotsam and jetsam is getting sillier every day. Some oysters have absolutely no taste: yesterday we found one that had permanently attached itself to a fake snake.

The Nature Conservancy has just released the first ever report on the state of the world's oyster populations. The prognosis is bad: 85% of the global oyster habitat has been destroyed by development, pollution, and destructive fishing practices. Read the report here. Short on time or attention span? Read a newspaper account of the report  here. Update: Check out The Economist's take on the report.