Instruct: Given a question, retrieve passages that can help answer the question.
Query: Where is the largest population of wild oysters?
The largest oyster-producing body of water in the United States is Chesapeake Bay, although these beds have decreased in number due to overfishing and pollution. Willapa Bay in Washington produces more oysters than any other estuary in the US.[9] Other large oyster farming areas in the US include the bays and estuaries along the coast of the Gulf of Mexico from Apalachicola, Florida in the east to Galveston, Texas in the west. Large beds of edible oysters are also found in Japan and Australia. In 2005, China accounted for 80% of the global oyster harvest.[10] Within Europe, France remained the industry leader.
Cotuit Oysters are a distinct version of the eastern oyster species, unique to Cotuit Bay and remarkable for their flavor. Wild oysters are making a gradual comeback along some shores. "Seed now comes from a hatchery...but unspoiled Cotuit Bay has changed little, and the oysters still have the bright and briny flavor they are famous for."
Once returned to the water, these recycled shells provide substrate for oyster larval eggs to begin populating oyster beds laid out by volunteers programs such as those implemented in Southwest Florida, North Carolina, South Carolina, Georgia Southern California, and Alabama. A common species of oysters used in oyster restoration is the Eastern American oyster (Crassostrea virginica), which is also called the American Oyster, Atlantic Oyster, Common Oyster, and Virginia Oyster.
By 1875 oysters that were once abundant were no longer native to New England waters. Wild populations have been established in recent years by the spawn of aquaculture oysters.
Kaziranga contains significant breeding populations of 35 mammalian species, of which 15 are threatened as per the IUCN Red List. The park has the distinction of being home to the world's largest population of the Greater One-Horned Rhinoceros (1,855), wild Asiatic water buffalo (1,666) and eastern swamp deer (468). Significant populations of large herbivores include elephants (1,940), gaur (30) and sambar (58). Small herbivores include the Indian muntjac, wild boar, and hog deer. Kaziranga has the largest population of the Wild water buffalo anywhere accounting for about 57% of the world population. The One-Horned rhinoceros, Royal Bengal Tiger, Asian elephant, wild water buffalo and swamp deer are collectively known as 'Big Five' of Kaziranga.
Oysters have been cultured since at least the days of the Roman Empire. The Pacific oyster (Magallana gigas) is presently the most widely grown bivalve around the world.[34] Two methods are commonly used, release and bagging. In both cases, oysters are cultivated onshore to the size of spat, when they can attach themselves to a substrate. They may be allowed to mature further to form "seed oysters". In either case, they are then placed in the water to mature. The release technique involves distributing the spat throughout existing oyster beds, allowing them to mature naturally to be collected like wild oysters. Bagging has the cultivator putting spat in racks or bags and keeping them above the bottom. Harvesting involves simply lifting the bags or rack to the surface and removing the mature oysters. The latter method prevents losses to some predators, but is more expensive.[35]
Proud Pour is a wine company that funds solutions to local environmental problems. Their first product, a Sauvignon Blanc called "The Oyster", funds the restoration of 100 wild oysters per bottle to New York Harbor and coastal Massachusetts. Their first restoration partners are the Billion Oyster Project and the Massachusetts Oyster Project.
The eastern oyster ("Crassostrea virginica")—also called Wellfleet oyster, Atlantic oyster, Virginia oyster, or American oyster—is a species of true oyster native to the eastern seaboard and Gulf of Mexico coast of North America. It is also farmed in Puget Sound, Washington, where it is known as the Totten Inlet Virginica. Eastern oysters are and have been very popular commercially. Today, less than 1% of the original 17th-century population (when the original colonists arrived) is thought to remain in the Chesapeake Bay and its tributaries, although population estimates from any era are uncertain. The eastern oyster is the state shellfish of Connecticut, its shell is the state shell of Virginia and Mississippi, and its shell in cabochon form is the state gem of Louisiana.
Olympia oysters are the only native oyster to the West Coast of North America. The establishment of a commercial fishery in the 1860s confirms a historical population within Netarts bay, with evidence of harvesting along the West Coast of North America by humans going back 4000 years. Due to over harvesting, increased consumption, and the export of adult oysters to San Francisco Bay, oyster populations declined in the late 1800s and the commercial fishery collapsed. The last known naturally occurring population of Olympia oysters in Netarts was surveyed in 1954. Subsequent field surveys in 1979 and 1992 did not find any Olympia oysters within the bay. Potential factors preventing population recovery post fishery collapse include: habitat degradation, sedimentation by increased motorized boat use, suffocation by burrowing shrimp, pollution, predation by invasive Japanese oyster drill and parasitism by non-native flat worm After their 1992 survey, Oregon Department of Fish and Wildlife began a large scale restoration attempt in Netarts, setting out 9 million spat between 1993-1998. Olympia oyster populations did not return to historical levels, but surveys in 2004 detected low populations of transplanted oysters in the bay. Anecdotal observations from residents also suggest small pockets of naturally occurring oysters subsist in the southwest corner of the bay. Juvenile oysters planted on adult oyster shell as substrate demonstrated that Olympia oysters can grow and reproduce in the bay. Small scale, investigative restoration projects run by The Nature Conservancy were undertaken in 2005 and 2006 to rebuild populations of Olympia oysters in Netarts Bay by adding shell cultch with set Olympia oysters to the bay in hopes of increasing settlement substrate and broodstock. Early monitoring of these sites found reproductive tissue and brooded larvae in adults and recruitment of larvae on shell substrate, but monitoring of the site ceased in 2007. Restoration interests are driven by culinary interest in Olympia oysters, the potential economic benefits of a commercial fishery, and the significant ecosystem services that Olympia oysters provide, including filtering the water and providing substrate for other organisms.
There are two types of wild oysters in New Zealand, Bluff oysters and rock oysters. Both have been commercially harvested since the mid-19th century. Bluff oysters have never been cultivated, but various attempts were made to cultivate the rock oyster.
Oysters are filter feeders, drawing water in over their gills through the beating of cilia. Suspended plankton and particles are trapped in the mucus of a gill, and from there are transported to the mouth, where they are eaten, digested, and expelled as feces or pseudofeces. Oysters feed most actively at temperatures above 10°C (50°F). An oyster can filter up to 5L (1.3USgal) of water per hour. The Chesapeake Bay's once-flourishing oyster population historically filtered excess nutrients from the estuary's entire water volume every three to four days. Today, that would take nearly a year.[7] Excess sediment, nutrients, and algae can result in the eutrophication of a body of water. Oyster filtration can mitigate these pollutants.
Humboldt Bay is a natural bay and a multi-basin, bar-built coastal lagoon located on the rugged North Coast of California, entirely within Humboldt County. It is the largest protected body of water on the West Coast between San Francisco Bay and Puget Sound, the second largest enclosed bay in California, and the largest port between San Francisco and Coos Bay, Oregon. The largest city adjoining the bay is Eureka, the regional center and county seat of Humboldt County, followed by the town of Arcata. These primary cities together with adjoining unincorporated communities and several small towns comprise a Humboldt Bay Area total population of nearly 80,000 people, which accounts for nearly 60% of the population of Humboldt County. In addition to being home to more than 100 plant species, 300 invertebrate species, 100 fish species, and 200 bird species, the bay and its complex system of marshes and grasses support hundreds of thousands of migrating and local shore birds.
Commercially, this second largest estuary in California houses the largest oyster production operations on the West Coast, producing more than half of all oysters farmed in California.
These hill ranges serve as important wildlife corridors and forms an important part of Project Elephant and Project Tiger reserves. The largest population of tigers outside the Sundarbans is in the Western Ghats where there are seven populations with an estimated population size of 336 to 487 individuals occupying forest in three major landscape units spread across Karnataka, Tamil Nadu and Kerala. The Western Ghats eco-region has the largest Indian elephant population in the wild with an estimated 11,000 individuals across eight distinct populations. The endemic Nilgiri tahr which was on the brink of extinction has recovered and has an estimated 3,122 individuals in the wild. The Critically Endangered endemic Malabar large-spotted civet is estimated to number fewer than 250 mature individuals, with no sub-population greater than 50 individuals. About 3500 lion-tailed macaques live scattered over several areas in the Western Ghats.
According to the "New York Times" in 2014, about 90 percent of oyster bar sales in the United States come from farmed (not wild) oysters.
Species restoration projects for the Olympia oyster funded by the US Government are active in Puget Sound and San Francisco Bay. An active restoration project is taking place in Liberty Bay, Washington. This Puget Sound location is the home of an old and new Olympia oyster population. Intertidal areas with native oyster populations or evidence of past populations are strong candidates for re-introduction. The re-establishment of the population is currently threatened by the invasive Japanese oyster drill "Ocenebra inornata". This species preys on the oysters by drilling a hole between the two valves and digesting the oyster's tissues. "O. inorata" is a threat to the oyster especially in areas with low populations of the mussel "Mytilus".
Oysters, mussels, clams, scallops and other bivalve species are grown with food materials that occur naturally in their culture environment in the sea and lagoons. One-third of the world’s farmed food fish harvested in 2010 was achieved without the use of feed, through the production of bivalves and filter-feeding carps. European flat oysters ("Ostrea edulis") were first farmed by the Romans in shallow ponds and similar techniques are still in use. Seed oysters are either raised in a hatchery or harvested from the wild. Hatchery production provides some control of the broodstock but remains problematic because disease-resistant strains of this oyster have not yet been developed. Wild spats are harvested either by broadcasting empty mussel shells on the seabed or by the use of long, small-mesh nets filled with mussel shells supported on steel frames. The oyster larvae preferentially settle out on the mussel shells. Juvenile oysters are then grown on in nursery trays and are transferred to open waters when they reach in length.
Most of the global Pacific oyster spat supply comes from the wild, but some is now produced by hatchery methods. The seed from the wild can either be collected by the removal of seaweed from beaches or by hanging shell (cultch in suspension from long lines in the open water. The movement towards hatchery-reared spat is important, as wild seed is susceptible to changeable environmental conditions, such as toxic algal blooms, which can halt the supply of seed from that region. In addition, several pests have been noted as considerable dangers to oyster seed. The Japanese oyster drill ("Ocenebra inornata"), flatworm ("Koinostylochus ostreophagus"), and parasitic copepod ("Mytilicola orientalis") have been introduced accidentally to aquaculture areas, and have had serious impacts on oyster production, particularly in British Columbia and Europe.
Overharvesting would eventually deplete the remaining oyster population in the bay to just 1% of its historical level, where it stands today. Oyster harvests began to decline in the 1890s. They were being taken much faster than they could reproduce. Also, many of the shells and reefs were being taken and not being replaced. Oyster spat need a hard surface on which to attach, and these were vanishing because of the destruction of oyster reefs. By the 1920s, harvests were down to 3–5 million bushels per year, stabilized for a time by returning oyster shells back to the bay. But in the 1950s, the weakened oyster population had to deal with the diseases "dermo" and MSX. These decimated the remaining oyster population. The parasites which carried the disease are alien to eastern waters, and they were thought to have been brought to the Chesapeake by Asian oysters. Currently, oyster harvests average less than 200,000 bushels a year.
The Sydney rock oyster, New Zealand rock oyster, or Auckland oyster ("Saccostrea glomerata"), is an oyster species endemic to Australia and New Zealand. In Australia it is found in bays, inlets and sheltered estuaries from Wingan Inlet in eastern Victoria, along the east coast of New South Wales, and north to Hervey Bay, Queensland, around northern Australia and south along the west coast to Shark Bay in Western Australia. Also, a small population exists on the islands in the Furneaux archipelago Flinders Island, in Bass Strait, Tasmania. The spat for these oysters travels down the east coast of Australia on the East Australia Current. and in Albany on the south west coast of Western Australia, where they are farmed. In New Zealand, where the species is not farmed, it is known as the New Zealand rock oyster or Auckland oyster. The Sydney rock oyster is closely related to "Saccostrea cucullata", the hooded oyster, which is common on Indo-Pacific rocky shores.
In the early 19th century, oysters were cheap and mainly eaten by the working class. Throughout the 19th century, oyster beds in New York Harbor became the largest source of oysters worldwide. On any day in the late 19th century, six million oysters could be found on barges tied up along the city's waterfront. They were naturally quite popular in New York City, and helped initiate the city's restaurant trade.[32] New York's oystermen became skilled cultivators of their beds, which provided employment for hundreds of workers and nutritious food for thousands. Eventually, rising demand exhausted many of the beds. To increase production, they introduced foreign species, which brought disease; effluent and increasing sedimentation from erosion destroyed most of the beds by the early 20th century. Oysters' popularity has put ever-increasing demands on wild oyster stocks.[33] This scarcity increased prices, converting them from their original role as working-class food to their current status as an expensive delicacy.
In one method the spat or seed oysters are distributed over existing oyster beds and left to mature naturally. Such oysters will then be collected using the methods for fishing wild oysters, such as dredging.
While the oyster industry created wealth, it also suffered many setbacks and upheavals, as well as creating social inequalities. In 1885, some oyster farmers sought greater opportunities by immigrating to West Sayville, New York on Long Island, where wild oysters were once abundant. During the 20th century, further setbacks in the form of harsh winters, especially in 1963, and the threatened closing of the Eastern Scheldt by a dam almost led to the collapse of the oyster industry. After moderate recovery, the bacterium "Bonamia ostreae" infected the prevalent flat oysters, again decimating the industry in 1980. This led to the introduction of the Pacific Oyster, now the most cultivated oyster species, which some consider an invasive species.
European flat oysters are famously grown in Brittany, France. The true Belon oyster is cultivated in the Belon River, France, and has the AOC protected name. In the 1950s, Dutch scientists artificially introduced Belon oyster seed into the waters around Maine in hopes to establish a viable stock. The initial project was abandoned but ten years later natural colonies of flat oysters were found in the wild. Many North American suppliers use the name 'Belon' to species that are found in the wild throughout the United States.
"Crassostrea virginica", the Eastern Oyster, was a major reef builder in the Chesapeake Bay until the late 19th century. Because of overfishing, environmental degradation, and disease, populations of "C. virginica" underwent a drastic reduction in population size. There is an established pattern connecting human fishing practices to oyster population collapse across the globe. Besides the collapse of "C. virginica" reefs on the east coast of the United States, populations of the Olympia Oyster, "Ostrea lurida", on the western coast of the United States and the Rock Oyster, "Saccostrea glomerata", of eastern Australia have both been heavily impacted by harmful fishing practices.
The Oyster Reef Restoration began in June 2009 and is expected to be completed by the fall of 2010. The project is funded by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) as part of the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009. The goal of the project is to restore the important oyster habitat in the St. Lucie and Loxahatchee Estuaries, two of the largest brackish water systems on the east coast of Florida, where over the last 50 years oyster populations have declined by as much as 75%.