The Watershed Project is an NGO based in Richmond, CA that inspires Bay Area communities to understand, appreciate and protect our local watersheds.

My first engagement with the organization was at Bubbles and Bivalves, their annual fundraiser at the Aquarium of the Bay on Pier 39 in San Francisco. Much of their programming and activities align with what Hustleshuck is trying to do as far as using oysters to get people more connected to (improving) the marine environment. Their flagship project is a set of artificial oyster reefs located on the tide flats at Point Pinole on the eastern shore of San Francisco Bay.

Several times a year a group of volunteers go out to monitor the reef in order to get a sense of the state of the native oyster population. Olympia oysters are the only species of oyster native to the West coast. There wasn’t much of a commercial industry for them in the San Francisco Bay as there was further north in Oregon or Washington, however they still played a crucial role in the estuarine ecosystem. Across the globe, oysters are recognized as a keystone species in coastal environments thanks to their habitat forming and water filtering capacities.

These ecosystem services were lost when sedimentation and declining water quality created an inhabitable environment for oysters in the San Francisco Bay. Like similar projects in New York Harbor and Chesapeake Bay, The Watershed Project is trying to reestablish native oysters in San Francisco Bay in the hopes of improving the health of the environment, regaining some of the biodiversity that was lost, and connecting local inhabitants to the history and promise of the Bay as a natural and cultural resource.

It was an early to start to get over to Point Pinole by 7am. We had to take advantage of the low morning tide in order to have enough time to collect our data before the reefs once again became submerged in bay water. We paired up in teams of two and set about analyzing the number and size of oysters on the reef balls as well as determining what else was growing on them and in the area.

Our surveying method consisted of randomly selecting a 6''x6'' area on the north side of randomly selected reef balls. With about 30 individual areas observed we could get a good overall sense of the health of population at this site. I was blown away by the number of oysters we found, as well as the amount of algae and other invertebrates living on and around the reef balls. It definitely seemed to be a high energy environment, remarkably similar to oyster farming sites in the concentration and diversity of organisms.

All-in-all it was a successful outing. I’d never seen so many Olys (as Olypmia oysters are commonly known) in the wild. The reefs were also clearly creating habitat for other animals like grass shrimp, which are a key prey species for striped bass, shad, and other fish.

I’ll be curious to see how things will have changed on the next outing later in Fall. Stay tuned!

I was not expecting much in the way of oysters from a surf trip to the Pacific coast of Nicaragua last winter. I was unable to find anything related during some preliminary research on the subject. Except for the fact that there was a town just south of San Juan del Sur, our destination, called Ostional. I could not confirm exactly what that translates to in English but I knew ostion means oyster. That was enough to make a short day trip down close to the Costa Rican border to see if there was some hidden oyster paradise in the coastal jungles of Nicaragua.

Driving south of San Juan del Sur we passed a couple of small towns and tourist outposts, bumping along a red dirt road, heads out the window looking and listening for monkeys. We reached Ostional without really knowing it, doubling back and taking the only road west, presumably to the water. The road came to an end at a seemingly forgotten stretch of land, which was home to a few hammocks on shore and a small fleet of fishing boats just of the rocky beach.

There was an empty bar a little ways down the beach, outside of which a man was mending a tired fishing net. It seemed like anywhere without a surf break around here was out of luck as far as luring any tourist traffic. Especially unsurprising here considering the state of the only road in and out. Unfortunately I wasn’t able to uncover any secret oyster lore in Ostional, and a cursory exploration of the rocks did not yield any discoveries.

That changed, however, on our way back to San Juan del Sur, when we stopped at a well-known surf break at Playa Yankee. The road in and out of this beach was probably the hairiest we’d been on and would have been impossible without some serious all wheel drive. The tide was about dead low and there was nothing breaking so I asked a couple of locals if there were any fish around. They said there were, so I asked about oysters. To my surprise, they actually knew what I was talking about and said they were around as well, although there isn’t really a market for them. Curious, I took my fly rod down to the rocks and threw a couple casts, all the while scoping the lowest reaching rocks for signs of life.

Sure enough on a concealed edge of rock close to the water line, I saw the unmistakable remnants of a bivalve set. Upon further examination, there were a handful of individuals still alive that appeared to be oysters. Although too small for consumption they were nonetheless oysters, Ostrea conchaphila perhaps, a close relative of the Olympia, which is native to the West coast of North America

When I got back Stateside, I did a little digging and turns out there is an oyster industry in Ostional. Traditionally run by women, which might explain why I didn’t get anywhere, I only spoke with men! I managed to find a couple links to a proposed project to formalize the oyster harvesting industry in the area.

http://blog.pasopacifico.org/2014/03/a-womens-cooperative-oyster-farm/

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=shyeLvGkr4A