History of the Delaware Bay Oyster Industry Oysters reefs were found from the mouth of the Delaware

Bay to Woodland Beach, on the western (Delaware) side of the estuary, and in New Jersey; from Artificial Island on the eastern side, a distance of about 50 miles. These reefs for several hundreds of years provided a sustainable food supply, and contributed to the local economy of Kent County and New Castle Delaware, along with most of the counties in New Jersey, sharing the Delaware Bay and River for centuries. From the mid-1800's to the first quarter of the Twentieth Century, oysters were a popular seafood in the United States so abundant, you would find oyster carts dotting the streets of Wilmington, DE and Philadelphia like the fast food chains you see today. This was the food of people from all walks of life from the connoisseurs to the blue collar workers, young children to convalescents alike enjoyed the Delaware Bay bivalves. Easily eaten, and high in quality protein making them great snacks for people in a hurry. In the early years of the fishing industry of the Delaware Bay and River, the oyster industry produced an annual average of 9.2 million pounds of product worth $1,600,000 (Today that figure would be nearly $1.5 Billion adjusted for inflation). Shucking and seafood processing plants began to be built along the coastline, and soon after, opened for business hiring tens of thousands of people along both the New Jersey and Delaware sides of the Delaware Bay, creating jobs the economy from the fishing industry boomed. Entire towns began sprouting up up around the oyster industry: Port Norris, Bivalve, Shellpile, and Maurice River in South Jersey; Bowers Beach, Leipsic, Woodland Beach Delaware City Augustine Beach, and Little Creek in Delaware. At the peak of the oyster fishery, Port Norris could claim more millionaires than any other town in New Jersey! The prosperity extended throughout the region, even as far as Philadelphia, where some business and ship shareholders were based. Shops and services sprang up in the small towns along the Bay from Ship building. People flocked into the region because of the employment opportunities and a chance to share in the good life. On the Delaware Bay, oysters are usually dredged from "Seed" beds in the spring and "Planted" on other beds to grow out to market size (3" is the legal minimum). Oyster planting in the Delaware Bay was first done in the 1820s in Port Mahon, Woodland Beach, and Little Creek in Delaware. In the late 1940's, dredging under power began, most of the old schooners cut down their masts, converting to power, which allowed the watermen to harvest more oysters with less effort. within a few short years (the late 1950s), Delaware Bay oystering collapsed, due to overharvesting and then a new found enemy to the oyster; the oyster disease MSX (Haplosporidium nelsoni) a microscopic parasite too small to see with the naked eye. What is MSX The parasite first enters the oysters tissues it multiplies and then spreads. The plasmodial stages can be found throughout the soft tissues of the oyster, and by the end of the summer spore stages MSX begins developing inside the walls of the digestive tubules. All this causes tissue damage that gradually weakens of the oysters until they ultimately begin dying at the end of the

summer.The oyster catches around 1957 dropped 98% in two seasons and never recovered. The loss of the oyster business turned many south Jersey and Delaware communities into ghost towns. The MSX and Dermo organisms where first discovered in the Delaware Bay, some experts beleve the diseases could have come to the Delaware Bay from elsewhere in the world on ships (i.e., in ballast water, or on oyster seeds brought into the bay, or oysters that were brought in by the public and "put over the side to keep."). Stress to the oysters from pollution or eroded sediment is also believed to weakened the oyster making them more susceptible to the disease. Other causes for the oyster depletion is possibly due to changes in salinity of the water where the oyster reefs were, caused by water use, and the removal of plant cover upstream; channel dredging may have also stressed the oysters or otherwise helped the diseases to spread.

Although, its not known for sure whether human activities promoted the spread of oyster diseases, its generally true; when an organism is stressed (by pollution, climate, inadequate food, etc.), it becomes more susceptible to disease or predation (so that in nature, weakened members of a species are often "weeded" out). So, an oyster choked by sediment or sickened by disease MAY be more likely to die of disease. Erosion of sediment (soil) from the land, especially land from which the natural plant cover has been removed is one of the problems for oysters. Sediment in the water will "choke" an oysters gills, slowing both its breathing and feeding ability. this sediment also settles out and covers oyster beds, cutting off their supply of clean, oxygen-containing water. Sediment excess can result in what is called Nonpoint Source Pollution (or NPS) One of the problems for oysters is the erosion of sediment (soil) from the land, especially land from which the natural plant cover has been removed. Sediment in the water can "choke" an oysters gills, slowing both breathing and feeding. It can also settle out and cover oyster beds, cutting off their supply of clean, oxygen-containing water. Sediment excess can result in what is called Nonpoint Source Pollution (or NPS), pollution that can't be traced back to a particular point. NPS pollution is primarily runoff from farms, streets, and lawns, where pesticides, fertilizers, oils, and other toxic materials are used, as well as sediment. Forests and wetlands tend to act as filters or sponges, absorbing rainwater and NPS pollution before reaching the River and Bay. Paved land doesnt absorb rainwater, instead funneling it runoff, along with the pollutants, carrying them directly into streams before being able to be filtered through the soil and plants. Oyster Biology/Pollution Effects Oysters live in shallow brackish or salty water growing in piles or clumps known as "beds." or "reefs" They require hard bottom habitat shell or rock. Oysters cannot survive being buried in the mud.

(Where is the natural hard bottom of the Delaware Bay?) One of the most interesting things about the oyster is that it can actually clean the water it lives in! Oysters feed by pumping water through its body-- filtering out its food. Oysters live on mostly algae and decaying plant material. A healthy oyster filters 50 or more gallons of water each day. Also, a natural oyster bed provides the habitat shelter and food for a community that includes many other organisms: plants, crabs, worms, and a variety fish: Croakers, Sturgeon, stripped bass, weakfish, Oyster Toadfish (oyster crackers), white and yellow perch, etc. Among other creatures you may see on an oyster reef are predators to the bivalve: oyster drills, moon snails, or whelks, snails that feed on oysters by drilling holes through the shells. The spat or larvae are very vulnerable. They are eaten by a wide variety of fish and invertebrates. Large oysters may be eaten by crabs, fish ( rays, skates, drum), starfish, worms, or birds (i.e., oystercatchers). Boring sponges are commensal, (use the shell as their home). They dont actually eat the oysters, but they can kill them. Oyster matting habits or reproduce mostly in summer, by releasing eggs and sperm into the water. Usually almost all the oysters in a bed will spawn at once once the water temperature reaches about 70 F. The fertilized eggs become larvae ("spat") that eventually settle and attach themselves ("set") to a hard bottom, (usually another oysters shell). Its important to return old shell to the oyster beds, a practice long ago started by the oystermen in the Delaware Bay.

Efforts were undertaken to escalate production and profit, but one factor working against the oystermen was the demand for shells to be ground into lime, depleting the shell supply needed to host seed oysters. State officials in 1846 decided to close the oyster beds that summer. Some oystermen began gathering a load of oysters and took them to Philadelphia and New York market, discovering they were overstocked. While returning home the oystermen dumped the bivalves nearby in deep water of the Bay. The following fall season they discovered that the oysters had fattened, and realized the potential of moving the small oysters from the shallow beds relocating them in deeper saltier waters of the Delaware Bay. Transplanting oysters became a widespread practice bolstering profitability, but depleted the natural beds in the shallower waters. Many seed oysters were also shipped to New England. As the shellfish continued to decline, oystermen had to go as far as Long Island Sound to acquire seed oysters for the following harvest. Sediment has also created new shoals (sand bars) and mud flats, and filled in many streams and channels. For example, Mauricetown was formerly a deepwater port for oceangoing ships, however, few of those ships could get there today. Other ports, and indeed the main River-Bay channel, need frequent dredging to keep them open. Perhaps the channel (and the transportation it allows) is too deep for the system to support? This dredging can cause sediment and other contaminants that have already settled out to be resuspended in the water, exposing oysters and other animals to the "recycled" pollution. Under-dredged ports lose their access to trade, and often become ghost towns. Funding Requirements

Recovery of the oyster industry of the Delaware Bay requires supplementing current funding with additional dollars to enhance production, support capacity building within the existing oyster resource management program, and expand market development efforts. These activities will provide the greatest economic return to the industry in the short term and establish the basis for a sustained, economically viable program. Estimated Return on Investment Coastal towns along the Delaware Bay developed as a direct result of the healthy oyster industry. Subsequent decline of the industry led to a high rate of unemployment and a drastic decline in the standard of living for many families with established roots in the region of Kent County and New Castle County. It is anticipated that given an initial input of state funds to bolster the oyster industry of the Delaware Bay, (targeting locations from Woodland Beach, to Bowers Beach,) within a five-year period, production can increase to between 200,000 and 330,000 bushels per year. It is also anticipated stabilization of supply and increased market development activities will result in a higher ex-vessel price ($51 per bushel). Using a conservative harvest and a very conservative ex-vessel value of $ 8million annually and applying a standard seafood economic multiplier of 6 The value of the industry to the state's economy is potentially $34 million annually. This is especially critical because these anticipated economic gains can be achieved in areas currently under severe economic stress. According to Delaware Department of Labor data released last week (July 14,-20 2013). Also anticipated; most dollars earned in the region will stay in the region supporting local small businesses. The value of the industry extends well beyond the oyster industry itself and extends to other waterfront activities such as shipbuilding and repair, preserving Delaware's maritime heritage through ecotourism and preservation of the maritime way of life. Given changes in environmental conditions and other natural variables, it is difficult to develop accurate projections of return on investment. However, even under the most conservative estimates, return on investment in the State's oyster industry is substantial.

History of the Delaware Oyster Industry Thomas Campanius Holm, an early Swedish settler, wrote in 1642 Delaware Bay oysters were "so very large that the meat alone is the size of our Oysters [Ostrea edulisl shell and all" (Ingersoll, 1881). A chart drawn by another Swede, Peter Lindestrom, between 1654 and 1656 showed the entire Delaware shore lined with oyster beds, as well as a large bed extending west from Cape May Point in New Jersey (Miller, 1962). Oysters from the bay were an important food source for early Dutch and Swedish colonists, and the establishment of British settlements along the bayshore later in the 1600s, especially the growth of Philadelphia as the region's largest city, fostered the beginning of commercial harvests. By the 1750s, fresh oysters from Delaware Bay were being shipped to

Philadelphia and New York (Smith, 1765), and pickled oysters, to the West lndies (Miller, 1962). The earliest oystermen were also farmers who probably gathered oysters from inshore areas using small boats and tongs; however, sloops and schooners capable of harvesting oysters from deep-water beds were built on the Cohansey River at Greenwich in the 1730s (Rolfs, 1971), and a 1777 map of New Jersey shows a large area of oyster beds offshore from Ben Davis Point. . By 1888, most of the harvest was shipped by rail (Nelson, 1889). Oysters harvested from Delaware waters continued to go by boat to Philadelphia or across the bay to Port Norris or Greenwich (Fig.A1--I), where they were shipped by train to Philadelphia (Ingersoll, 1881; Hall, 1894). Unlike New Jersey, the coastal railroad in Delaware served primarily to transport salt hay and agricultural produce. When lngersoll (1881) visited Delaware Bay in 1879-80, there were already nearly 1,400 vessels (about 300 of them sloops and schooners greater than 5 tons) and 2,300 men employed in taking oysters from the estuary.

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