Oyster restoration a shell game

SAN FRANSICO - From the name of Oyster Point in South San Francisco to the story of the Hangtown Fry, oysters have played their own quiet role in the history of the Bay.

Harvested for food almost to extinction, the 2-inch Olympia oyster, the only native Bay oyster species, tenaciously hangs on, despite water pollution and more than a century of silting on top of its natural habitat.

"We thought they were gone for a long time," said Brian Mulvey, a fishery biologist with the National Marine Fisheries Service, part of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Association.

Mulvey is working on a pilot project near Redwood City to assess whether native oyster reefs could thrive again on the San Mateo County coast.

So far, the year-old project has yielded 10,000 to 20,000 Ostreola conchaphila clinging to several pallets of 200-shell bags near outer Bair Island and Greco Island.

Source: Inside Bay Area