![]() "In order to keep these customers close to us so we could have them again for the next season we kind of gave the product away and we had inferior product and it kind of took us out of the market," said Ruth.īut, he says, things have changed over the last five years as Maryland has been pushing aquaculture. But once that season closed, he had to scramble to find oysters, bringing them in from Texas and Florida to satisfy their customers. Jason Ruth, co-owner of the business, says he used to do pretty well during the Maryland’s public oyster season, October through March. Those bivalves will become the makings for fried oysters and oyster stew. Shuckers stand on either side, prying open the shells, carefully slicing the muscles and dropping the meat into stainless steel buckets. Some are packaged for shipment right away and others wind up in the shucking room, a long, narrow space with a table running down the middle. Oysters come into Harris by the trailer truck load from all over the bay. He took a lot of oysters off that lease and more off his other leases thousands of bushels. ![]() I put a lot of shell over here this year," said Leonard. I planted a lot of stuff from Horn Point here, spat on shell. He even took on an additional lease where no oysters had grown before. So, he got some shells from Harris Seafood on Kent Narrows, baby oysters-spat-from the state lab at Horn Point and went to work. Then about four or five years ago he got a letter from the state warning him he’d lose his leases if he didn’t start growing oysters again. "I mean, you got a tremendous expense there and a lot of labor and you know, when you, year after year, you go there and you see them all dead it really takes the fun out of it," said Leonard. He says he “lost interest” in the late 90s, after the diseases Dermo and MSX devastated his crop. "I started out just kind of as a hobby and uh, just really interested in oyster aquaculture and I thought it was really neat that you could grow something that was beneficial to the environment and hopefully make some money while you’re doing it," said Hudson.īobby Leonard had a number of those dormant leases, one on the Tred Avon River and another here on Edge Creek, south of St. Hudson was working as a paralegal at Washington law firm when he got into the business in 2011 "Environmental benefits associated with shellfish aquaculture and or economic growth in our rural communities and an opportunity for commercial watermen to produce oysters through private methods. ![]() Roscher says the revitalized leasing program was aimed at reversing that trend. Oysters, which filter water and reduce nutrient and sediment pollution, have dwindled to one percent of their historic numbers in Chesapeake Bay. Currently we have 352 leases in the state of Maryland that are active," said Roscher. "But the department has permitted over 150 new lease applications. But since then, the state has received more than 300 lease applications. Karl Roscher, head of the aquaculture division at the Maryland Department of Natural Resources, says most of the existing leases were dormant at the time. Martin O’Malley began pushing the program in 2010. He is one of hundreds who applied for leases to grow oysters in Maryland waters after the administration of then Gov. Hudson sells about a million oysters a year from his farm in St. "So, yeah, pretty soon this is going to be too full," said Hudson. These are young oysters, planted just last April and quickly outgrowing their cage. Soon enough, they find it, hook it onto a winch, and fire up a diesel engine to haul the cage on board. Jerome Creek, searching for the line that’s connected to the cage that’s loaded with thousands of young oysters. On a foggy November morning Patrick Hudson’s crew is poking boat hooks in the waters of St. ![]() It still has a way to go to catch up with Virginia, but is well ahead of the one here in the First State – which hasn’t gotten off the ground. Now, it’s increasingly likely those oysters are farm raised.Īs part of our with WYPR in Baltimore, Virginia and Delmarva Public Radio and WESM – WYPR’s Joel McCord joins us this week to tell us that Maryland’s oyster aquaculture program has mushroomed since 2010. Five years ago, if you had a Maryland oyster – it was most likely caught wild by a commercial waterman. While you finish up leftovers from that Thanksgiving turkey, here’s something else to think about this time of year oysters. ![]()
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