Update: Chesapeake Bay Asian Oyster Trials Abandoned

Oyster fishermen on a Chesapeake Bay skipjack emptying their haul onto the deck.

Even before Virginia made a decision on the matter of introducing Asian oysters into the Chesapeake Bay, the folks over at the Virginia Seafood Council (VSC), the industry group that was running the trials, jumped the gun and decided to withdraw from the project.

On March 25, the Newport News Daily Press reported on a meeting of the Virginia Marine Resources Council (VMRC), at which the Virginia Seafood Council’s executive director, Frances W. Porter, appeared to withdraw the group’s application to introduce the non-native species to the bay. VSC had been looking at the possibility of farming Asian oysters to help boost state’s oyster industry, which has been sagging of late due to declining numbers of native Virginia oysters from overharvesting and chronic disease.

The VMRC had no comment, according to the Daily Press’s account of the meeting, nor does the VSC have any mention of the project on its website. The Virginia Seafood Council does, however, tout its efforts as supporting local seafood that is “Wild, Sustainable, and Available,” as any good lobby group should.

Maryland opposed the project outright; evidently the Army Corps of Engineers hasn’t made its final determination yet, but the Daily Press story hinted that VSC’s Porter had an inside tip that the Corps was going to recommend against introducing the Asian oysters, effectively dooming the effort.

A Mar. 20 story in the Salisbury (Md.) Daily Times reported that other Northeastern states have contacted the Corps to oppose the project:

Delaware, New Jersey and New York sent a letter recently to the corps opposing the introduction. The states said that even if batches of sterile oysters are introduced, they may inadvertently contain fertile oysters which could create a breeding population that could outcompete the native oysters in the Chesapeake. If that happens, even stringent bio-security measures may not be able to stop its spread, which Delaware said could threaten its restoration efforts in the Delaware Bay.

A final note, that has little to do with this specific issue but is an interesting factoid in its own right: The Virginia Seafood Council reports that the state is the 4th largest “producer of marine products” in the United States (estimated value: $500 million annually), and the VSC has a $250,000 annual budget for marketing the state’s seafood industry.

The county’s top seafood producer, as anyone might guess, is Alaska. Note the value of the salmon harvest, on its own:

Over 4.46 billion pounds of seafood was harvested from Alaskan waters in 2000, comprising approximately 48% the entire U.S. seafood harvest. In the same year, Alaska salmon harvester earnings reached $272 million, comprising 91% of the value of all salmon harvested in U.S. waters. (Alaska Department of Commerce, Community and Economic Development)

If you guessed that Alaska’s seafood marketing budget would be correspondingly large, you win a cookie. Alaska’s seafood industry council (also promoting itself as “Wild, Natural and Sustainable” — I smell a conspiracy!) has a budget 100 times that of Virginia’s: $25 million annually.

How can little Virginia oysters compete with money like that?