Do Charles Darwin’s theories on the survival of the fittest apply to oysters? The Chesapeake Bay Foundation certainly hopes so.

Chesapekae Bay Foundation workers plant seed oysters in Sarah's Creek. Photo by Peter Galuszka

The ecology group is turning to Darwin and aquaculture to meet its goal of boosting the Chesapeake’s depleted oyster stocks tenfold over the next 10 years. In late July, CBF volunteers and staff planted 500,000 tons of seed oysters in the knee-deep waters of brackish Sarah’s Creek in Gloucester County. Within a year, they will be transplanted to big-time waters, such as the York River, where the foundation hopes they’ll breed by themselves. They won’t be used for human consumption, but will be used to start new breeding communities.

As mollusks go, these are no puny youngsters. They were bred in foundation labs from the toughest Lynnhaven oysters. As they grow in protected Sarah’s Creek and are transplanted, they should be able to handle diseases such as MSX and Dermo, along with pollution that has reduced the Bay’s oyster harvest from 20 million bushels in the 1880s to about 500,000 bushels now. "We think they’ll be tough enough to survive," says Rob Brumbaugh, a foundation fisheries scientist.

Aquaculture has been used on a large scale in Virginia to harvest clams, especially on the Eastern Shore. Yet, the state’s oyster industry has been slow to use it. That’s something the foundation hopes to change.

— Peter Galuszka