
The tiny but mighty Olympia oyster regains a foothold in Washington waters - DoreenMichele
https://www.seattletimes.com/pacific-nw-magazine/the-tiny-but-mighty-olympia-oyster-regains-a-foothold-in-washington-waters/
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NelsonMinar
This is the least important reason to maintain species diversity, but...
Olympia oysters are _delicious_. Very different flavor from the dominant
Pacific species. I'm hopeful there's a win-win here where we're able to
improve the ecosystem that also benefits from a financial incentive.

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zbobet2012
I'd die laughing to see a concerted conservation campaign around this:

> Stop killing all the delicious things! Think of how many fruits, how many
> oysters, how many fish you havn't tasted! Save them all so you can eat them
> all!

~~~
Mikeb85
Well, all of the plants and animals we like to eat * are the most numerous on
the planet, thanks to us.

Edit: *And have domesticated

~~~
opportune
Except for a lot of fish and shellfish

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mar77i
Not after watching this a while ago.
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VGJLKhsLx18](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VGJLKhsLx18)

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thoughtpalette
Somewhat off-topic but the article photograph of "Doane’s Oyster House" with
the "Ladies Entrance" led me down a rabbit hole as I've never heard of them
before. Really interesting stuff.

[https://www.phillyhistory.org/blog/index.php/2018/07/saloons...](https://www.phillyhistory.org/blog/index.php/2018/07/saloons-
rise-and-fall-of-the-ladies-entrance/)

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samstave
Oysters are incredibly important.

You know that millions that was spent on the plastic cleanup effort for the
pacific gArbage. Gyre?

It would have been much better spent on oyseter farms (and to the pacific
garbage gyre cleanup just a little later)

You know the biggest obstacle to pollution is ignorance and poor education.

I was just pinging bill gates on this earlier today.

You can treat the symptom, but the cause is human stupidity due to lack of
education.

A world standard of how to treat the health of the planet needs to be set, and
by comparison to many other things, is actually affordable.

Because all youre doing is setting a standard of basic knolewdge that every
single child on the planet should learn - spreading that knowledge is easier
(once formulated) thAn say, vaccinating every child from polio, or developing
and deploying water purification plants everywhere.

What if we educate children, AND WE DEPLOY as many oysters as we can around
the globe everywhere.

[https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=saAy7GfLq4w](https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=saAy7GfLq4w)
<— the most important one. We should spend a billion dollars on Oysters.

[https://www.villagevoice.com/2015/06/01/a-billion-oysters-
te...](https://www.villagevoice.com/2015/06/01/a-billion-oysters-tell-the-
history-of-new-york/)

[https://www.thrillist.com/amphtml/eat/nation/oyster-facts-
ne...](https://www.thrillist.com/amphtml/eat/nation/oyster-facts-new-yorkers-
dont-realize)

[https://www.nypl.org/blog/2011/06/01/history-half-shell-
inte...](https://www.nypl.org/blog/2011/06/01/history-half-shell-intertwined-
story-new-york-city-and-its-oysters)

~~~
mcrider
Are oyster farms good business? I would think at the price you pay for them it
would be a pretty sustainable venture. I just watched the episode of The Chef
Show where they visit the California oyster farm and talk about how oysters
filter up to 50 gallons of water a day. It didn't seem like there was a ton of
labor cost, and obviously incredibly beneficial for the environment. It would
be great to see them subsidized by the government but I'm curious why they
don't exist in greater numbers already. I for one love oysters and would very
much like to see more west coast varieties here in Toronto :)

~~~
tashoecraft
I just saw that episode too. But I think a problem is that when using oysters
in areas that are polluted you really shouldn't eat them. So it'll be awhile
before it's a business venture of eating them. I know in NYC they are growing
oysters in order to improve the water conditions with no intention of eating
them yet.

~~~
samstave
Yeah,

In NYC before people were messing up the environment just by the nature of
building a huge city, there were billions of oysters all around amd the water
was super clean.

Then they harvested and ate all the oysters, and the waters became very
polluted.

Look at the size of this pile of oyster shells from 1912

Those are people standing on the pile

[http://www.nnhs65.com/oysters/1912-oyster-
shells-7.jpg](http://www.nnhs65.com/oysters/1912-oyster-shells-7.jpg)

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amos19870630
Great story about a creature making a comeback with the help of some hard-
working humans. But, in my opinion, the best place for an oyster is in the
ocean, not anywhere near my mouth.

~~~
dsfyu404ed
Suit yourself, cheaper shellfish for me then.

I'm sure farming them en-masse probably isn't great for the local ecosystem
but it sounds like there's a long way to go before historical concentrations
are reached let alone surpassed.

~~~
soperj
Why wouldn't it be good for the ecosystem? Oysters clean the waterways...

~~~
ceejayoz
It's reasonable to assume oysters aren't the only organism to do this.

It's probably fine to restore the oyster reefs to their former glory. It might
not be fine to populate them with 10x the natural amount.

