Environmentally Responsible

Farming oysters and other filter-feeding bivalve shellfish benefits the environment.

Oysters improve water quality by filtering phytoplankton (algae), which reduces excess nutrients, making the water more transparent. This helps bottom plants, on which many other organisms depend, to thrive.

Farmed oysters also reduce fishing pressure on and (if they spawn) help to restock local wild populations, and provide habitat for many other organisms.

Few other farmed products can make such a claim. The leading independent guides and certification programs for responsible seafood, including the Monterey Bay Aquarium’s Seafood Watch and the Aquarium of the Pacific’s Sustainable Seafood Forum, and environmental nonprofits such as The Nature Conservancy and the Environmental Defense Fund, give culturing oysters in floating bags or on bottom racks — our practices — their top ranking.
Socioeconomically Sustainable

Socioeconomically Sustainable

Because wild shellfish stocks have declined in so many areas, large numbers of commercial fishermen can no longer support themselves with shellfish harvesting. They have had to find income from totally unrelated activities.

Small-scale shellfish aquaculture can provide marine-based livelihoods for these watermen, preserving a lifestyle and trade crucial to maintaining the integrity of Chincoteague and other seaside towns.

Our operation has involved local Chincoteague watermen from the start and has provided full-time employment for two of them

It’s a Win-Win Situation

"Oyster farming is one of the few situations in which both economics and the environment win: any body of water that can support a vibrant oyster industry will almost certainly be cleaner and more vital than one that cannot. Farmed salmon may turn flabby, bland and, without the addition of dye to its diet, dully grey, but eating an oyster will always be, as Léon-Paul Fargue, a Symbolist poet, said, 'like kissing the sea on the lips.'"
The Economist, Dec 18th 2008