Noting yesterday when i went out and lookedwwe have a dead zone e right at o our dock, thereres nothing growowing the. When most people think about the oyster, they knknow the stotorif the oystermen. They know the story of the watermen and all of their problems over the years, butut they dont knowow so much about the ecologigical valuee of the oyster. Its a great filter of the bay, its responsnsible in some ways for the health of the bay, and one of the most interesting things,s, to me, was that an oyster can filter 50 gallons of water a day. And what it actually means is that the oysters eat algae, anand wheyou getoo much aae it t smothers the oysters, it keeps out the sunlight, you cant do photosynthesis, and if we can support the ecological value of the oyster as much as the consumer value, were doing a Great Service to the bay. [crickets chirping] its the first day of oyster season in maryland. And the tongers are out in full force in broad creek, a tributary of the Eastern Shores largest river, the mighty choptank. Hand tonging is a traditional method of harvest. It takes somebody who is tough and has a great love of the water to do it. They enjoy being who they are, what they are, where they are, and doing what theyre doing. Its a prpretty good way to sped your life. You get up early, you get to see things that people that work in offices dont ever see. It t feels self rewardrded, you know, its good. Its s good. Youre your own boss and you can go when you want. [chuckles] quit when you want, start when you want. If i had to start all over again id probably be the exact same thing. Well, kurts rigight that hes his owown boss, within thehe limitations imposed by the state of maryland. He can fish for oysters from october 1st through march 3 31st from sunrise until 3 00 p. P. M. , except in january, when he can tong oysters until sunset, which is not much later than 3 00. Hes limitited to 15 bushehels r day, p per person,n, or 30 bushe per boat. And the oysysters he cacatches e to be atat least 3 incnches. While the hand tongers work the shallower waters at broad creek, divers and patent tongers with hydraulic controls and larger rakes search for oysters in deeper waters. In november, the power dredgers join the tongers for the rest of the season and are bound by even stricter regulations. Dredgers include the few remaining skipjacks that once filled the bay. Under sail, skipjacks can haul in 150 bushels per boat, but if they use motorized push boats, which most working skipjacks do, they can only dredge your oysters two days a week. And the draw of being a waterman was that big day, and thats been taken away through regulations and its very difficult. Its a lot more regulations, a lot less profit in the business so, a lot less opportunity to have big days, theyre very regulated, no matter if youre able to catch 1,000 worth in oysters, where you could d do that in the past, youre scheduled youre going to make 300 at the best, no matter how hard you work, you stop at 300. Theres been a long history of tension between watermen and State Government over fishery management and regulation. Why . Because watermen want fish, and the state wants to save the chesapeake oyster from extinction. Itts a complicacated situtuat. Theyve put new restrictions on everything just about every time you go out, every year, you know, and. They probably dont want us out there, to be honest with you. Theres watermen tong broad creek, millions of oysters remain off limits in the next tributary, harris creek. One of the key strategies for expandining the bays oyster population was to estatablish ad protecect a network of continuos oyster s sanctuaries throughouot Chesapeake Bay. In 2010, departments set aside 2424 of the bays good oyster grounds to be permanently protected from harvesting. Well, the sanctuaries im not in favor of them because they took 25 of our bottom away from u b but it wawas 75 of the most productive bottom thahat we had. So, i mean, it really put an impact onto the commercial fishery. I believe that we could achieve a better effect while having a managed reserve. And they could be openeded up wn you have new market, like justst before t thanksgiviving for yoyr thanksgivining orders, and r christmas for your christmas orders. And that would really help the industry. Because they do get opened for harvest periodically, yourere not going to have the devellopment of the 3 3 dimensil reefs that you w would get overr time in a permanent sanctuary where that vertical growth of oysters is allowed to build upon itself over time and provide that 3 dimensional habitat. But everythings a compromise, i think youou need to mix in a consnseration fofor the fifishes and a consideration for the ecosystem. I understand watermens frustration of seeing areas that ththey cant worork to have oys, but the ultimate goal is long term susurvival of the resource and the lifestyle that it has supported. There have been oyster regulations in maryland for over 100 years and theres always been resistance from the watermen, but with the public resource it has to be managed for everybody, not just for a sellect few people. Oysters are important from a Commercial Point of view. Theyve sustained a fishery, ththeyve sustained livelihohood for people e r hundredsds of years now. Theyre also extremely important ecologically. Sadly,y, the number of the bays native oysters is estimated to be about 1 of historic peaks. From an ecological perspective, that titanic loss of oysters is a disaster for the health of the bay. Were tryining to achieve an increase in the oyster population whwhich will result in an increase in the Ecosystem Services provided by o oysters. We used to be able to filter the volume of the bay in a few days, now its on a scale of a year. The primary pollution problem in n Chesapeake Bay is nitrogen and phosphorous that come from a variety of sources andnd what ty do is stimulate a severe overabundance of microscopic plants called phytoplankton or algae. If theres too much algae in the water, that shades out sea grasses and bottom dwelling plants and they start to decay, and when they decay it uses up oxygen and then other things start to die. That results in a large volume e of the bay in the deepr watter that t has no oxygen or ininfficient oxygen to support higher life, we call the dead zone, and this canbebe up t 40 of the volume of theayay in the summer,o o this ia a sere assaulto the stem. Sohe o oysrs are removing that t algae, cleing g up the water that ls s sunlightht penetrate deeper to sea grasses and other bottom dwelling plants so that they can photosynthesize, the more oysters you remove from the system, the less filtration powewer you have. So, when were restoring oysters to the bay, oyster reefs, oyster bars, oysters in numbers approaching what they might have once been, you are replacing that filter. Restoration is almost the wrong word to use, id d sa, because it assumes were going back to some time in the past. Theres no getting back to the way things were. We dont have the Water Quality we had, but we have, you know, millions of People Living in the Chesapeake Bay watershed, and so its not feasible to go back. The way to look at it is, where do we want to go from here under the conditions that we have now. W. We want to restore oysters in our sanctuaries to particular densities. Were looking at a density of 50 oysters per meter squared, and thats pretty high. Marylands plan for restoring oysters in permanent sanctuaries dovetailed with an executive order by president obama to protect and restore the Chesapeake Bay. The implementation strategy calls for a collaborative restoration of 20 targeted tributaries by 2025. Its a phenomenal collaboration that we hadnt seen before thats most noteworthy because its trying to establish whole systems, not just individual reefs. And youve got the National Oceanic and atmospheric administration, noaa, involved in a lot of that planting and monitoring. The red line is a sanctuary boundary. Youve got the corps of engineers involved and planting substrate. Youve got the university of maryland involved with their oyster hatchery and producing seed oysters. A nonprofit, called the oyster recovery partnership, planting those seed oysters on that ground. And youve got the state of marylands department of Natural Resources pretty much serving as the quarterback for all of that. The first targrgeted tributay was harris creek in Talbot County on marylands eastern shore. The plplan calls for restoririn7 acres of oyster reefs in harris creekek at a cost o 1 million n dollars. We chose harris creek because it had the greatest likelihood of success. The Water Quality is good, we have good salinity here for oysters. Theres not much runoff compared to other areas of the bay. Its a different approach than weve been taking in the past having these small scattered projects, have one very large project, and so we took all the production from the hatchery this year that was going to go to ecological restoration, and we put it all in harris creek to try and jumpstart the population here. This past year, the partnership was able to produce 1. 2 billion oyster spat, which iim not aware of any oyster hatcheryry for this spsps of oyster thahats ever b been e to do that in a single season, so were pretty proud of that. Maryland dnr brings the shell here, its aged for a year so that the organic matter can rot off of it. Its then washed and contntainerized d by the oyststr recovery y partnership. Its put in our setting tanks, and we add hatchery produced larvae to them, and we let the spat set on those shells. These are some hatchery plantings that were put out two years ago, and you can see how much theyve grown in two years. You can see on this cluster, the muscles we have growing here, the barnacles. It provides habitat for a number of different species that are growing on the shells. These oysters were dredged from harris creek as part of the 2013 fall survey of oysters. 62. 61. This year weve visited over 260 bars and took well over 300 samples. What we found in the fall susurvey is ememendously encouraging. G. At least in certain areas of the bay, oysters seem to be thriving. From the survey, Mitch Tarnowski and his team create a biomass index based on oyster abundance and weight. The biomass index has increased to a point where its the highest in the 23 years that weve been measuring this. Thats great news for the watermen as well as the bay. Watermen were expected to see their best season in 3 decades. Based on the first two months of the 20132014 season, harvests were estimated to be as high as 500 thousand bushels, although the cold and icy wiwinr may put a chill on expectations. 500,000 bushels is a lot of oysters, but still a drop in the bay compared to harvests before 1980. So what happened to the oysters . When you look at the chart of diminishing harvests, its easy to assign blame to watermen for over fishing, and no doubt there was a gold rush on oysters for centuries. But it took more than over fishing to cause the flat line that defines a dying resource in the first decade of this century. We werent over fished because what happened was when theisease camame in and killed the oysters that we hahad, it wiped it out. Two protozoan parasites are major pathogens of oysters in Chesapeake Bay waters. One pathogen causes a disease known as dermo disease, and the other pathogen causes a disease known as msx disease. The first time that oyster disease really became a big deal in the region was in 1959 when we had this explosion of msx activity. That was the first time disease decimated oyster harvests in modern times. But it wasnt the last, and it wasnt the worst. Oyster mortalities from both mmsx and d dermo disease occur in Chesapeake Bay during drought years when water salinities are elevated. You have a drought, i pretty much bet my life on it, me a and a lot of otheher peopl, ifif you have a drought fofor 23 years and the water g gets salt, i bet they die. Weve seen it too many times. The most t recent period of high mortalities from both diseases occurred during a 4 year drought between 1999 to 2002. During that time, we saw the highest lelevels of both msx and dermo disease of maryland waters on record, and we also saw the highest levels of nonfishing mortalities by maryland Chesapeake Bay oysters. The reason we use the rectum is because thats where you usually see the first signs of dermo disease. Fortunately, the levels of disease detected in Current Populations of oysters are relatively low. During a full survey, we go to 43 bars, which h are diseseae monitoring bars. This year, we found that disease has been at an extremely low level once again. Just put them there and. Unfortunately, there is no Real Prevention or cure for the diseaseses. They could come back at any time and wipe out substantial numbers of oysters in the public fishery and in the sanctuaries. 98, 6. The spat that we produce in the hatchery here in these tanks is grown in such a way that it doesnt leave here with any disease in it. When you move the seed oysters from a wild sitee to another site, youre not only moving the oysters, yoyoure moving the parasites that cause oyster disease with i it. Our oysters do not carry any of those parasites with them. They not magic superysteters, bubut at leleast weve startem out witith a bettter sittuation. Diseasefree baby oysters may be more resistant to msx and dermo, but theyre not immune. Most adult oysters carry some level of disease. Theres no way to create a wild oyster that is going to be entirely free of these diseases. What we need to do is think about Management Strategies where we will promote the development of natural resistance to these diseases. Desigigning sanctuaries, y you , setting aside areasas where the oysters can babasically work tthings out with the p parasite, with minimal human i interferen. Maryland has one of the most substantial oyster restoration programs in the world, and they deal primarily simply with the maryland portion of the bay. Virginias answer has been to go into oyster aquaculture. So, maryland and virginia have two different approaches, although maryland is now also getting interested in the aquaculture aspect of it. 99 of ththe oyster product that comes out in the world is from cultivating oysters not from fishing them in a natural sense. Here, of course, its, you know, were still just making the transition from fishery to aquaculture. Maryland is very late in getting into this game, primarily because the ststate of mmaryland was very protective of the watermens traditions and the heritage. The new lease laws s were changd in 2010, and thehe state of maryland began acaccepting neww lease applications. About 50 of the applications were from watermen, and th continueses to this day. One being g robert t. Brown whos the current presiddent of the watermen associaiation in maryland. Aquaculture, its a number of people who have started [indistinct]. Its a way where we can keep oysters on the market. Its a way that we help put more oysters into the bays and the rivers to help filter the water. Its a good program. Scrolled up a load of these freshly picked up oysters. Marylands finest. If we want to eat oysters, we should grow them like we do Everything Else that we eat. Ah, there we go. We dont go out, and hunt, and gather anymore because theres very few resources that can sustain huntingndnd gathering anymore, and oysters is no exception, and the natutural resource proobably shd be left for its s ecological vae where it belolongs. These are farm fields that were trying to get going. Underwater farm fielelds. And farming is a good industry. Eric wisner and his uncle, mike lindemon, have about 360 acres of leased bottom in the nanticoke river. They dredged the public fishery during oyster season, and harvest oysters from their aquaculture beds the rest of the year. For the past 3 years weve been putting around 50 million baby oysters on our leases. And each one of those oysters has the potential of filtering 50 gallons of water a day, and once when you start doing the math, you start enteringg into the trillions of gallons of water that get filtered just by your little operation. Starting a lease is extremely challllenging becausese you are tasked with taking bare end bottom and improving it to the point where you can harvest oysters. Eric wisner had to add 4 inches of substrate before he planted spat on shell in his oyster farm. His investment seems to be payingng off. He s saw some mamarket sized oys in about 18 months. Another challenge to restoration for both sanctuaries and aquaculture is shell. At one time there were hundreds of shucking houses in maryland, but today, there are only a handful, and only one year round operation, Harris Seafood on kent island. Up until the last 3 years, we sold alll our shell toororn point, they useded it for their restoration efforts dowown ther. Now, in the last 3 years we have moved allll our product to private aquaculture farms. Theyre buying that shell to premium. 4 years ago, we wewe able to buy all the oystter shell we wanted for the state of maryland for 25 cents a bushel. Ouour costs in that time pererid have g gone from 25 cents a busl to 2 a bushel. We are in such short supply for oyster shells that as projected now, we will run out of oyster shells in this state in about 3 years, and well be forced to shut down the states oyster hatcheries. One of the most valuable commodities that w we have right now in the oystster industryy isis the shell. In its natural life cycle, the oyster spends around 3 weeks swimming around and at the very end of that process, actually, develops a little foot, and it at that point in its life stage, will start to drop to the bottom of the bay and look for areas to attach, typically that would be other shells fromin an oyster reef. In aquaculture, we can give it a substitute oyster shell in the form of these tiny little pieces of shell. Each of these are probably only about 5 times larger than the larvae itself. And because the shell chip is so small, when it grows up, its basically a single individual oyster. Were going to was thisthis microcorch which is a 300 micron in size down through this 500 micron screen, and the oysters that arehave grown larger than 500 microns will set on this screen while the shell just goes through, so well [indistinct] off the oysters from the shell. So what were doing here isis jt washing right on through here. Once all the shell gets washed through all well have left are the oysters themselves. Dr. Allen is revered for developing the triploid oyster. A sterile oyster that doesnt become thin and watery in the summer months like a reproductive oyster does. Oysters have been described as reproductive machines inside two shells, and so, if we can shut down that reproductive mechanism, we can get the oyster to devote that otherwise rereproductive energy into beina robust and meaty oyster. So, what that does for us as an industry is, first of all, it gives us an extraordinary oyster. Its 30 to 50 higher meat yield. It grows so fast that those diseases, really, dont have time to kill it. And it doesnt spawn so its available year round for consumption and for sale. Ecology and culture often clash when it comes to managing oysters. When you come right down to it, watermen, scientists, and everyone who lives in the chChesapeake Bay watershed, all want the same thing, a teeming, healthy, sustainable bay. Oyster restoration is one giant step toward that goal. Spat is the title of my film and thats appropriate for my film because ththere certainy isis a spat between the e watern and the scientists onon how we manage oysters. S. The watermen want to fish to earn a livining. The scientists, on the other hand, are very dedicated to bringing back the oysters on the bay. We want to support the watermen, and we want to support aquaculture, and we want everyrybody to love oystersrs because the m more they love oyststers, theyll care about them, anand theyll care about e bay and want to know more about how we cacan protect them. I i guess what i was trying to y in this film was that everything we do on n the bay, everything we eat, everything we harvest has a purpose, and i want this bay to be healthy, i want it to be teeming with life, and ii want it to be welelcoming and there forever f for many genenerations. S. Reyes a remote tribe in the ecuadorian amazon is giving up their traditional huntergathering way of life for the good of the environment. Im elaine reyes in washington, d. C. , and this is americas now. [woman speaking spanish] reyes firstst up, an Award Ceremony in ecuador seeking to promote environmental preservavation salutes sustainability projects in the americas. [speaking spanish] translator the truth is we only have one planet, and we are certainly exhausting its resources. Reyes correspondent Harris Whitbeck reports on latin americas green awards andnd the impact theyre having on the natural world