When British explorer George Vancouver’s crew landed ashore in Discovery Bay in 1792, his naturalist, Archibald Menzies, wrote about the small oysters that covered the bay’s bottom.
Pollution from mills and over-fishing in the mid-1800s brought the native Olympia oyster to the brink of extinction.
By the latter half of the 20th century, small pockets of the silver-dollar-size oysters were difficult to find around Puget Sound.
What dominates oyster beds today is the Japanese or Pacific oyster, which now dominate where Olympia populations once flourished.
Consequently, Jefferson County Marine Resources Committee members in 2002 launched an effort to revive the rich oyster populations that Vancouver and Menzies once witnessed in Olympian proportions.
Oysters seeded
Since then, the committee and Jefferson County resident volunteers have planted close to 400,000 Olympia oyster seedlings in six private plots around Discovery Bay.
Today, the fruits of their labor are becoming more visible with each low tide — tiny oyster seeds are now beginning to mature.
“The point is not to have Olympic oysters grow everywhere in Puget Sound, but to restore them to their previously existing range,” says Michelle McConnell, Marine Resources Committee coordinator and project manager, who specializes in environmental education and restoration project management.
The group originally planted 25,000 seeds in 2002, followed by plantings of 195,000 in 2003 and 178,500 last August.
Some 40 volunteers have been involved in the plantings, said McConnell, and volunteers will continue the project this spring and fall by monitoring for survival rate and the growth.
