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Are you implying this is a volunteer opportunity where people restore the oyster population. while also simultaneously eating... oysters?

dachryn 4y ago
the very same oysters that digest all the nasty stuff in the river. Has to be a great idea to eat those
- gilbertbw 4y ago
  I went and looked this up, because it sounded horrible. from https://www.billionoysterparty.org/oysterfarms https://www.billionoysterparty.org/oysterfarms > Oyster farms travel to the Billion Oyster Party from across the country, bringing their unique oysters for you to try — and pair with your favorite beverages.
- wil421 4y ago
  You don’t eat them until after water quality has improved if it’s that bad. You also test for certain types of bacteria certain times of year depending on location. The biggest pollution is usually from run off and oysters eat nitrogen and phosphorus. Nitrogen causes algae growth, like red tide, which deals all kinds of havoc to ecosystems.
TeMPOraL 4y ago
Why not? If there's one tried and true way to ensure an animal or plant species survives and thrives despite the damage humanity does to the entire ecosystems, it's to make that animal or plant a food for humans. The most successful land animals today are... cows, pigs and chicken. (Compare with horses, which were successful because they were useful... until they weren't anymore, and their population dropped. And yes, this also implies that lab-grown meat is an extinction-level threat for aforementioned farm animals.)
- briffle 4y ago
  The US deer population is now 100 times larger than it was a century ago. Fees from hunting brings in billions for conservation and habitat programs.
- tetromino_ 4y ago
  That's only really true for species that we figured out how to farm. Species which we eat but don't farm we tend to eat to extinction, or near-extinction. Think of the Atlantic cod fish.
  - JumpCrisscross 4y ago
    > only really true for species that we figured out how to farm Most oysters we eat are farmed. And you need the old shells as a substrate to grow a new oyster bed.
- Majestic121 4y ago
  Given the life cows, pigs and chicken have, I'd object to the term successful. They are being reproduced (not a mistake here, they don't actually fuck/reproduce on their own) a lot that's true, but using the word 'successful' to describe their fate seems a bit too cynical.
  - _eht 4y ago
    FYI my rooster fucks his hens, the bull covers his coos, and well, my horses are gelded so there’s that… you might just be farming wrong. Pretty much everyone eating well and having a good time.
- eesmith 4y ago
  Counter-examples: the passenger pigeon, the moa, and Mauritius blue pigeon are extinct, primarily due to hunting as a food source. Other human food species are extinct due to a combination of being a human food source and a food source for invasive species introduced by humans (eg, the Domed Rodrigues giant tortoise). Famously the American buffalo went from 60 million in the late 1700s to 541 a century later. It was a cheap meat, provided cheap leather, and in order to deprive Plains Indians from a food source, the US government decided not to protect it earlier. Then there's the collapse of many marine species due to overfishing, most recently the king and snow crab population collapse which canceled the season in Alaska, and the continuing question of the role humans played in the Quaternary extinction event. Therefore, I suspect your claim isn't so clear-cut.
MisterTea 4y ago
Its like planting lettuce while eating a salad.
balderdash 4y ago
Growing oysters is one of the few farming/aquaculture type operations I can think of that has very POSITIVE externalities on its surrounding ecosystem in terms of improving water quality/flood reactance etc.
downut 4y ago
Of course! Besides being delicious and nutritious to begin with, it's important to increase familiarity/popularity because amazingly, NIMBY happens to oyster farms, too. Ruins the viewscape, the waterfront landowners say. Even though these farms improve the quality of the water they sit in. I've eaten many dozens of raw oysters at just about every coast I've ever visited (EU/MX/Gulf of MX, Pacific & Atlantic US), and have never gotten sick. I'm pretty careful with Gulf oysters though.
JumpCrisscross 4y ago
> this is a volunteer opportunity where people restore the oyster population. while also simultaneously eating... oysters? Pretty neat, right? Turns out oyster larvae can’t just attach to anything. And one of the best materials for them to take root on is oyster shells. So you fly in oysters from around North America, charge a ticket price, have a good time; and then load the dried shells into chicken-wire crates (volunteers build them), lower them into reefs [1] and then innoculate them with larvae. After a few seasons, the water around the reef becomes clean enough to allow for doing it again. (Oysters are filter feeders. You don’t want to eat ones growing in dirty water.) [1] https://www.billionoysterproject.org/reefs/ https://www.billionoysterproject.org/reefs/

dachryn 4y ago

the very same oysters that digest all the nasty stuff in the river. Has to be a great idea to eat those

gilbertbw 4y ago
I went and looked this up, because it sounded horrible. from https://www.billionoysterparty.org/oysterfarms https://www.billionoysterparty.org/oysterfarms > Oyster farms travel to the Billion Oyster Party from across the country, bringing their unique oysters for you to try — and pair with your favorite beverages.
wil421 4y ago
You don’t eat them until after water quality has improved if it’s that bad. You also test for certain types of bacteria certain times of year depending on location. The biggest pollution is usually from run off and oysters eat nitrogen and phosphorus. Nitrogen causes algae growth, like red tide, which deals all kinds of havoc to ecosystems.

TeMPOraL 4y ago

Why not? If there's one tried and true way to ensure an animal or plant species survives and thrives despite the damage humanity does to the entire ecosystems, it's to make that animal or plant a food for humans. The most successful land animals today are... cows, pigs and chicken. (Compare with horses, which were successful because they were useful... until they weren't anymore, and their population dropped. And yes, this also implies that lab-grown meat is an extinction-level threat for aforementioned farm animals.)

briffle 4y ago
The US deer population is now 100 times larger than it was a century ago. Fees from hunting brings in billions for conservation and habitat programs.
tetromino_ 4y ago
That's only really true for species that we figured out how to farm. Species which we eat but don't farm we tend to eat to extinction, or near-extinction. Think of the Atlantic cod fish.
- JumpCrisscross 4y ago
  > only really true for species that we figured out how to farm Most oysters we eat are farmed. And you need the old shells as a substrate to grow a new oyster bed.
Majestic121 4y ago
Given the life cows, pigs and chicken have, I'd object to the term successful. They are being reproduced (not a mistake here, they don't actually fuck/reproduce on their own) a lot that's true, but using the word 'successful' to describe their fate seems a bit too cynical.
- _eht 4y ago
  FYI my rooster fucks his hens, the bull covers his coos, and well, my horses are gelded so there’s that… you might just be farming wrong. Pretty much everyone eating well and having a good time.
eesmith 4y ago
Counter-examples: the passenger pigeon, the moa, and Mauritius blue pigeon are extinct, primarily due to hunting as a food source. Other human food species are extinct due to a combination of being a human food source and a food source for invasive species introduced by humans (eg, the Domed Rodrigues giant tortoise). Famously the American buffalo went from 60 million in the late 1700s to 541 a century later. It was a cheap meat, provided cheap leather, and in order to deprive Plains Indians from a food source, the US government decided not to protect it earlier. Then there's the collapse of many marine species due to overfishing, most recently the king and snow crab population collapse which canceled the season in Alaska, and the continuing question of the role humans played in the Quaternary extinction event. Therefore, I suspect your claim isn't so clear-cut.

MisterTea 4y ago

Its like planting lettuce while eating a salad.

balderdash 4y ago

Growing oysters is one of the few farming/aquaculture type operations I can think of that has very POSITIVE externalities on its surrounding ecosystem in terms of improving water quality/flood reactance etc.

downut 4y ago

Of course! Besides being delicious and nutritious to begin with, it's important to increase familiarity/popularity because amazingly, NIMBY happens to oyster farms, too. Ruins the viewscape, the waterfront landowners say. Even though these farms improve the quality of the water they sit in. I've eaten many dozens of raw oysters at just about every coast I've ever visited (EU/MX/Gulf of MX, Pacific & Atlantic US), and have never gotten sick. I'm pretty careful with Gulf oysters though.

JumpCrisscross 4y ago

> this is a volunteer opportunity where people restore the oyster population. while also simultaneously eating... oysters? Pretty neat, right? Turns out oyster larvae can’t just attach to anything. And one of the best materials for them to take root on is oyster shells. So you fly in oysters from around North America, charge a ticket price, have a good time; and then load the dried shells into chicken-wire crates (volunteers build them), lower them into reefs [1] and then innoculate them with larvae. After a few seasons, the water around the reef becomes clean enough to allow for doing it again. (Oysters are filter feeders. You don’t want to eat ones growing in dirty water.) [1] https://www.billionoysterproject.org/reefs/ https://www.billionoysterproject.org/reefs/