Comeback for Olympia Oysters
The Olympia oyster is making a comeback. And the importance of that comeback goes beyond the menu or the shooter glass. It could mean cleaner water nearshore and a resurgence in the population of other native organisms. It could also mean the renewed availability of a traditional food source important to the region’s Indigenous peoples.
“We say on the Salish Sea, ‘When the tide goes out, the table is set,’” said Tom Wooten, chairman of the Samish Indian Nation. “Shellfish have always been an important part of our diet and culture. Without oysters, mussels, and clams, our entire ecosystem will break down. … As people from here who still live here, we rely upon the bounty of our Salish Sea.”
The smallish, once-abundant oyster is the only oyster native to Washington state. At the time of European and American contact, there were an estimated 20,000 acres of Olympia oysters in the bays and inlets of Washington’s inland coast, according to the Puget Sound Partnership (PSP).
By 2010 — 155 years after treaties made Western Washington available for non-Native settlers — only 4% of the Olympia oyster population remained, due to overharvesting and habitat destruction, Puget Sound Restoration Fund director Betsy Peabody said in a documentary on the Partnership website.
https://www.postalley.org/2024/03/31/comeback-for-olympia-oysters/