The Role of Management in Chesapeake Oyster Production

Tr HE Chesapeake Bay has long been a great oyster fishery. As early as 1607, George Percy of the Jamestown expedition wrote that oysters lay on the ground as thicke as stones and that they very large and delicate in taste.' A century later, a Chesapeake traveler wrote: abundance of oysters is incredible. There are whole banks of them so that ships must avoid them.... They surpass those in England by far in size, indeed they are four times as large.2 By 1858, the Chesapeake Bay was producing an estimated 20 million bushels (roughly loo million pounds) of oysters a year,3 and by 1880 the commercial production of the bay exceeded the combined output of the rest of the world.4 Since 1880, however, Chesapeake oyster production has declined drastically (Fig. 1); only 22 million pounds of oysters were harvested in 1969 as compared with the 117 million pounds that were taken in 188o. The decline in oyster production is not the result of deteriorating ecological conditions. Although pollution, siltation, and disease have caused some damage to the fishery, the ecological base of the bay is largely intact. Fewer than o1 percent of the natural oyster bars are subjected to pollution.5 Siltation is judged to be a relatively minor problem.6 Disease, which is a factor only in the lower bay, did not become serious until 1959.7 Thus the sharp decline in Chesapeake oys

Biology · Chesapeake bay · Economics · Estuary · Fishery · Oyster · Production (economics · Marine and fisheries research · Marine Bivalve and Aquaculture Studies

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