The Chesapeake Bay’s oyster population is still a long way from what it once was, but lately it’s shown signs of a rebound. Maryland and Virginia watermen harvested more of the bivalves in the most recent season than they had in more than three decades.
So why is Seafood Watch, a widely consulted guide to sustainable seafood, recommending that people avoid eating wild-caught oysters from the Bay?
The Monterey Bay Aquarium, which produces Seafood Watch, isn’t saying. A spokesperson for the California aquarium declined a request for an interview to answer questions about its draft report, which includes a recommendation to shun oysters from Maryland or Virginia.
“At this time, we are not able to comment on the draft assessment as the report may change based on feedback we receive in the public comment period,” the spokesperson said by email.
The aquarium was taking feedback through May 22. Since making its draft report public in April, it has received an earful from watermen, fishery managers, scientists and even other conservationists. Critics contend it erroneously portrays the Bay’s oyster population as overfished and poorly managed, a characterization they say even in draft form is hurting the region’s seafood industry.
“They have no idea what they’re doing,” said Robert T. Brown Sr., president of the Maryland Watermen’s Association, “… and they’re interfering with people’s livelihoods.”
Since 1999, the Monterey Bay Aquarium’s Seafood Watch program every few years has been offering what it says are science-based recommendations on which fish and seafood across the United States are sustainable “best choices” or “good alternatives” — and which should be avoided because of the risk of that species’ depletion or of harm to the marine ecosystem. It distributes about 2.5 million printable online guides every year aimed at influencing the purchasing decisions of nonprofit organizations, businesses and consumers.
Based on its last assessment in 2018, Seafood Watch currently rates oysters from Maryland and Virginia a good choice, despite some concerns, for those who care about sustainable seafood.
The new draft assessment downgrades those recommendations, citing “high concern” for the abundance of oysters in both states and deeming their public fisheries management ineffective. It even finds fault with the methodology Maryland has used in assessing the abundance of its wild oyster stock and whether it’s being overharvested.
Officials with the Maryland Department of Natural Resources say no one from the aquarium contacted them in developing the new assessment, and they were stunned to learn of the “avoid” recommendation.
“There’s missing information, there’s outdated information. They have misinterpreted information, and they have failed to live up to their own standards of using the best science and collaborating,” said Kristen Fidler, assistant DNR secretary for aquatic resources.
Agency officials defended the state’s oyster management, which they say is based on a science-driven stock assessment that has been reviewed favorably by a panel of outside scientists.
Mike Wilberg, a fisheries scientist with the University of Maryland Center for Environmental Science who led the development of DNR’s stock assessment, said he thought the Seafood Watch drafters applied an overly broad and uneven brush when rating the sustainability of oyster stocks along the East Coast. He said they failed to appreciate the complexities of the Bay’s oyster population and how it varies from one place to another.
“Some of the things we were criticized for [by Seafood Watch] are things we were praised for in the expert review of our stock assessment,” he noted.
“I applaud their efforts to get consumers to make conscious decisions [about sustainability],” Wilberg added. “Unfortunately, with all this stuff, the devil is in the details.”
Roger Mann and Mark Luckenbach, a pair of veteran oyster biologists with the Virginia Institute of Marine Science, likewise contend that the Seafood Watch ratings of their state’s fishery are “based on old data and are entirely inappropriate.” The data cited by the report’s drafters in deeming oyster abundance “a high concern” was more than a decade old, they pointed out.
JC Hudgins, president of the Virginia Waterman’s Association, said that the Virginia Marine Resources Commission and members of the seafood industry “do a lot to keep the Eastern oyster a sustainable species,” even as the state’s harvest from public fishery areas in the 2022–23 season topped 300,000 bushels for the first time in 35 years.
Since 2018, when Seafood Watch rated Virginia oysters a good choice, the fishery has steadily improved every year, Hudgins said. Last year, he noted, reef surveys found oyster densities at levels not seen since before diseases struck in the late 1980s and triggered a catastrophic decline in population and habitat.
Brown, head of the Maryland watermen’s group, said he believed the Maryland oyster recommendation was also based on outdated information. In the six-month 2022–23 season that ended March 30, watermen harvested more than 600,000 bushels, the most since 1986–87.
In the recently ended season, Brown said, “a lot of people were still catching their limits [early] at the end of the season. That’s telling you we had plenty of oysters there.” He also noted that since the first stock assessment in 2019 that found widespread overharvesting, the state has reduced daily catch limits. “We’ve got a good management plan,” he said.
Even conservationists, who have at times voiced their own criticisms of oyster management in the Bay, have qualms about the draft Seafood Watch recommendation.
Allison Colden, the Chesapeake Bay Foundation’s Maryland director and a fisheries biologist, said she thinks the aquarium may be jumping the gun because a fresh update of the state’s oyster population is due to be completed and released within a matter of weeks. She noted that conditions for oyster reproduction and survival have been on the upswing lately, with very low mortality rates from the once-devastating diseases MSX and Dermo.
Even so, Colden said, the Seafood Watch assessment “does highlight some of the lingering concerns CBF has had and still has with the fishery.” Though only a few areas are still experiencing overfishing, one of those is Tangier Sound, where the majority of Maryland oysters are harvested.
And while oyster reproduction has been good to excellent the last few years, Colden said, caution is warranted because the fishery has undergone boom and bust cycles in the past.
Colden said she was in wholehearted agreement with another Seafood Watch recommendation — a blanket endorsement of farmed oysters as a “best” choice for consumers concerned about the sustainability of the reef-building bivalves.
“We have long recommended that consumers choose farmed oysters from the Chesapeake Bay,” she said, “because that eliminates any possibility of concerns about sustainability or about oyster recovery.”
But even there, Maryland officials say, the Seafood Watch guides don’t make it clear enough that their “avoid” recommendation doesn’t apply to the state’s farmed oysters.
“We have a successful and growing oyster industry, both wild and aquaculture,” Fidler said. The “avoid” recommendation “could be incredibly damaging to the industry and really a major and unnecessary setback, especially with all the progress we’ve made.”
by Tim Wheeler
Reed Fawell 3 says
“So why is Seafood Watch, a widely consulted guide to sustainable seafood, recommending that people avoid eating wild-caught oysters from the Bay? The Monterey Bay Aquarium, which produces Seafood Watch, isn’t saying.”
California originally produced many of our greatest environmentalists, John Muir and David Brower, for example. Today’s these left coast environmental ideologues have all but destroyed California. Now they are busily at work trying to destroy the America’s eastern seaboard. Give them no respect, they deserve none.
Mike Davis says
Geez, can ANY issue today not be seen thru a political lens?? Are people who eat oysters libtard Democrats or fascist Republicans? What the heck is environmental ideology – someone who wants to destroy the environment or save the environment?
California has not been destroyed, even in part. Conservatively, it is the 5th biggest economy in the world. And its economy is larger than Texas.
But that is beside the point. I’m confident this dispute about the viability of Maryland’s oyster population can be settled without invoking Fox News.
Reed Fawell 3 says
This detailed article, titled “Consumer Guide Criticized for Saying ‘Avoid’ Chesapeake Oysters” and written by the Bay Journal, works effectively to devastate the Monterey Bay Aquarium’s Seafood Watch allegations on the status the Chesapeake Bay Oysters.
For example, the article’s assertion that “They have no idea what they’re doing,” said Robert T. Brown Sr., president of the Maryland Watermen’s Association, “and they’re interfering with people’s livelihoods” is clearly proven by the plain text of the Seafood Watch’s “draft” report. The draft amounts to little more than a string of obvious cliches, vague generalities, and obsolete and irrelevant facts collected for years from 100,OOO feet over the Chesapeake’s 64,000 square miles comprising the largest and most complex estuary in North America fed by over 500 rivers and streams all located some 3,000 miles away on the other side of North America from where the Monterey Bay Aquarium operates its of called Seafood Watch.
In short, this “consumer guide” concocted in California on Maryland and Virginia’s Chesapeake Bay oysters is not science. It’s part of a political campaign done by hit piece. This is plain to see from the Monterey Bay Aquarium’s sordid and well established modus operandi. Here the non-profit gins up and strings together a motley collection of vague allegations in a so called guide for what the public should and should not buy for their own safety and safety of the world, then leaks a draft of that guide that falsely claims to be based on a serious, rigorous, and fully up to date scientific study that, in fact, amounts to nothing more than a bum’s rush disinformation campaign. One designed and orchestrated in California to shut down a slew of vitally important and lawful and businesses and industries in Maryland and Virginia to achieve by falsehoods and illusory meme a faux crisis that jump starts political action to achieve the narrow political goals of the Monterey Bay Aquarium and its political supporters. Here the objective is to shut down and drive out of business key components of Maryland’s and Virginia’s seafood industry in the Chesapeake Bay, public and private, and gain effective environmental control of the Bay. In short, Chesapeake Bay oyster fishermen and those who eat their catch are the newest devils to follow into oblivion gas and oil producers and those buy their products, such as cars, heat, and electricity.
This racket birthed and nurtured in California to drive environmental policies across the nation and indeed the world has been going on for decades. As to this particular non profit actor, note here from Wikipedia: “Monterey Bay Aquarium plays an active role in federal and state politics, from sponsoring governmental legislation about the ocean[65]to persuading voter action from its visitors and online followers…The aquarium is a founding partner of the Ocean Project, which conducts national public opinion surveys about aquariums and environmental issues.And, along with Stanford University, it runs an organization involved in ocean science, policy, and law called the Center for Ocean Solutions. … The aquarium has participated in several international conferences that focus on ocean policy, including the 2017 United Nations Ocean Conference. … In March 2017, Monterey Bay Aquarium publicly endorsed the March for Science—a series of rallies and marches that occurred around the world on Earth Day the following April—and its penguins marched in their own miniature demonstration…”
Why do not the states of Virginia and Maryland take legal action against this California non-profit and its allies underhanded assault on their citizen’s businesses, industries, reputation and sovereignty? Or might they be in the same game?
Reed Fawell 3 says
Did you get in your email inbox yesterday, May 31st, this missive from the Maryland Department of Natural Resources fishing and Boating:
“The department is soliciting public comment on the Draft Amendment 1 to the 2019 Maryland Chesapeake Bay Oyster Management Plan. Please visit the Fishery Management Plan webpage for more details, including how to submit comment. Comments are due no later than June 30, 2023.”
Now, in light of this request, we can better appreciate the exquisite timing of the Monterey Bay Aquarium’s political action campaign seeking to marshal it forces to take control of oyster policy in Maryland and Virginia’s Chesapeake Bay. And we can thank our local Target and Whole Foods Market for their collaborative efforts in the coup plot, if Wikipedia is to be believed: specifically:
“The program (Seafood Watch) has expanded to include business collaborations, local and national restaurant and grocer partnerships, and outreach partnerships—primarily other public aquariums and zoos. Large-scale business and grocer affiliations include Aramark, Compass Group, Target, and Whole Foods Market.[60] In both 2009 and 2015, Seafood Watch was reportedly playing an influential role in the discussion regarding seafood sustainability.According to the aquarium, the program’s efficacy is driven by its work with both businesses and consumers, and is supported by the organization’s expanding science and ocean policy programs. In the late 2000s, Seafood Watch was likely the most known and most widely distributed sustainable seafood guide out of around 200 internationally,”
Given this Wikipedia description, one wonders if The National Aquarium in Baltimore is involved and allied with this budding effort to boycott Chesapeake Oysters and bully all legitimate authorities involved. Or, alternatively, if The National Aquarium in Baltimore should investigate California’s marine policies and procedures regulating seafood fishing and harvesting in the Monterey Bay on the California Coast under the threat of active boycott of seafood there if its demands are not met. Indeed, perhaps the National Aquarium in Baltimore should investigate the activities of the Monterey Bay Aquarium as well, particularly as to it efforts bully Maryland and Virginia on how they regulate the Chesapeake Bay.