The first effort to use aquaculture to restore native Olympia oysters in California has proven a success, doubling the population of oysters in Elkhorn Slough, a tidal estuary at the heart of Monterey Bay.
Results from the project, a collaboration between the Elkhorn Slough National Estuarine Research Reserve, Moss Landing Marine Laboratories at San Jose State University, California Sea Grant, and other partners, were published this week in the journal Biological Conservation.
Once so abundant that they could be harvested by the tens of thousands in just a few days, the population of oysters in Elkhorn Slough had plummeted to fewer than 1,000 individuals by 2018, according to researchers at the Elkhorn Slough National Estuarine Research Reserve. The local crash mirrors long declines that have been observed up and down the West Coast, because of overfishing, pollution, and development of estuarine wetlands that has destroyed habitat…
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