County getting behind local shellfish farming

Aquaculture in the coastal bays that stretch along the Worcester County mainland into Virginia could help revive a shellfish industry that disappeared from these waters decades ago.

As Worcester County’s tourism and marketing department launches its Maryland Coast Shellfish campaign today (Thursday), it’s worth noting that the effort marks the return of a commercial endeavor that had all but vanished by the late 1950s.

That enterprise was the coastal area’s oyster industry, which today survives largely through the floating cages and growing systems used by Worcester County’s oyster farmers. Although a few wild oysters can still be found at the southern end of Chincoteague Bay, their numbers are insignificant.

The irony is that the absence of oysters in Worcester’s waters up this way was first caused by the low salinity of the inland bays before the opening of the Ocean City Inlet in 1933, according to the state Department of Natural Resources.

But then, when the inlet did open and brought with it the saltier ocean waters, it also allowed predators such as the oyster drill to enter the bays and devastate local oyster bars. They did not recover.

The growing aquaculture industry, however, is changing all that by producing oysters, clams and bay scallops at commercial levels. And now, with Worcester seeking to do for its locally grown shellfish what successful agricultural brands have done for other food products, this county’s shellfish farming business could now be on the verge of a marketing breakthrough.

We hope so, because not only is shellfish farming a growing industry, it’s among the most sustainable and environmentally friendly forms of food production in the world, according to NOAA.

Besides, they sure are tasty.