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The University of MaineDigitalCommons@UMaine
Maine Sea Grant Publications Maine Sea Grant
3-2008
Maine Oyster CultCatherine V. SchmittMaine Sea Grant, [email protected]
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Repository CitationSchmitt, Catherine V., "Maine Oyster Cult" (2008). Maine Sea Grant Publications. 12.https://digitalcommons.library.umaine.edu/seagrant_pub/12
Jesse Leach (left), owner of Bagaduce Oyster Company, sorts oysters at his aquaculture lease site on the Bagaduce River. Inset: Leach prepares to head upriver to his oyster farm. Upper right: Oyster “grow-out cages” on the Bagaduce.
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MaineOYSTER
Damariscotta have been found as far northas Nova Scotia. The Damariscotta middenswere left by the region’s native peoples, whoharvested oysters that flourished in thewake of receding glaciers. As rising sea lev-els moved the coast inland, oysters multi-plied in the warm, brackish water, and thenatives feasted, but the great harvests did-n’t last. Around 1,000 years ago, the oystersdisappeared and the middens were aban-doned.
Anthropologist David Sanger, withwhom I discussed oyster history, suggestedthat as the sea level continued to rise, thesalt water brought with it predatory snailsknown as oyster drills and other marineanimals which, in addition to cooling tem-peratures in the Gulf of Maine, caused the
Oyster cultivation on the coast of Maine ison the increase: our water is clean, cold, salty,and full of nutrients, and our oysters have adelightfully distinctive taste.BY CATHERINE SCHMITT
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T THE POINT where the Great Salt Bay drainsinto the Damariscotta River, just above theRoute 1 Damariscotta-Newcastlebypass, there are great heaps of ancientoyster shells. One pile—technicallythese piles are called middens—is 30feet deep and contains shells as large as12 inches long. The shells crumble fromthe steep banks at Glidden Point into thesalty shallows of the estuary. In June, mat-ing horseshoe crabs scramble over the cal-careous fragments that are evidence of Maine’sonce-plentiful oyster populations.
While people have gathered shellfish fromMaine waters for more than 5,000 years, there wasa period when oysters were absent from the coast.Now a growing community of fisher-farmers isagain making a living pulling oysters from the sea.
Piles of discarded oyster shells like those in
oyster population to crash. Sanger said it is likely thatsome populations survived in the small creeksaround Salt Bay, but not enough to sustain thenatives. Later, when the Europeans arrived, they linedthe shores of the Damariscotta with brick yards andsawmills and cleared the land of trees. Clay silt, saw-dust, and soil washed into the river, making theDamariscotta inhospitable to any oyster thatattempted to return.
The eastern or American oyster, Crassostrea virginica, ranges from the St. Lawrence River in Cana-da to the Gulf of Mexico. In Maine, oysters once grewin the upper reaches of estuaries where water waswarmer and less salty than the open ocean, but wasdeep enough to prevent freezing in winter. It is truethat Maine never had extensive oyster reefs like thosein the Chesapeake Bay, which in the late 1800s pro-duced over half of the world’s oysters. But whileChesapeake Bay and other major oyster-producingareas are now troubled by pollution and overfishing,Maine’s coastal waters have remained relatively clean,making them the ideal place to attempt to bring backa traditional local food.
With the exception of a few stubborn oysters thatsurvived in the Sheepscot and Piscataqua rivers,Maine’s native oysters were all but gone in 1949 whenthe Department of Sea and Shore Fisheries (predeces-sor to the Maine Department of Marine Resources)introduced to Maine the European oyster, Ostreaedulis, the same species as the legendary Belon oystersof southern France. Because of colder temperatures,Maine was one of the few places on this side of thepond where these flat oysters might survive. While theexperiment didn’t take off the way the agency hadhoped, a few hearty European oysters took hold andestablished wild populations.
In 1972, Herb Hidu, a professor at the Universityof Maine, along with Ed Myers and other entrepre-neurs, began investigating the cultivation of oysters inMaine waters. With funding provided by the Sea Grantprogram, Hidu developed methods to culture theEuropean oyster in the Damariscotta River adjacent tothe University’s Darling Marine Center. In addition tobeing naturalized in Maine waters, the European oys-ter was different and uncommon, compared to theAmerican oyster, and thus had market potential.
“Things went well until the parasite Bonamiaarrived in the mid-1980s and pretty much wiped outthe European oysters,” said Dick Clime, one of Hidu’sgraduate students who is now co-owner of DodgeCove Marine Farm on the Damariscotta, where hegrows Pemaquid oysters.
With the European oysters devastated by disease,Hidu and the next generation of students reconsideredthe native species.They continued their research intothe 1990s, this time focused on Crassostrea virginica.
Jesse Leach is one of the 27 licensed oyster grow-
Above and center: Chris Davis of Pemaquid OysterCompany rotates oyster trays on the Damariscotta River.
Below: Jesse Leach selects and bags oysters to be shipped to restaurants.
94 MAINE BOATS, HOMES & HARBORS | February / March 2008 | Issue 98
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ers in the state. Unlike Chris Davis, a partner in the PemaquidOyster Company who earned his Ph.D. by studying ways tobreed oysters that grew faster and were better adapted toMaine’s cold waters, Leach came to aquaculture from a work-ing background. Ten years ago, he was a lobsterman, occa-sionally diving for scallops and sea urchins. He lost a fingerwhile hauling traps. Fearing declines in the fishing industry,and not anxious to lose any more appendages, Leach signed upfor a fishing industry retraining program directed by Davis andothers to see if he had other options.
“Aquaculture would keep me on the water,” said Leach.“Onceyou get saltwater in your veins, its tough to get it out.”Eight yearsago, he obtained a lease from the state to grow oysters in the Baga-duce River near his home in the town of Penobscot.
A few houses and blueberry fields line the banks of theBagaduce River, but for the most part the shoreline is unbro-ken spruce and granite. The tide drifts past uninhabited islandsand through lustrous beds of eelgrass before tumbling throughthe reversing falls that flow beneath Route 175/176. Leach’s oys-ter farm is located just upriver from the falls, which help to aer-ate the water and restrict the tidal range, preventing wide fluc-tuations in water level that would strand the oysters on exposedmud flats.
Since Maine waters don’t always get warm enough for oys-ters to spawn, most growers, including Leach, buy oyster “seed”from one of seven hatcheries in the state. Seed oysters are aboutthe size of a grain of sand. Leach places the seed in plastic meshtrays that float on the water’s surface. He turns the trays dailyto prevent fouling by sponges, sea squirts, and other organisms.Most growers place their shellfish on the river bottom to con-tinue growing, but Leach keeps his on the surface until theyreach market size, which for him is about two to three inches,when they are about three years old.
Leach has built the Bagaduce Oyster Company from ashoestring operation into a 200,000-oysters-per-year compa-ny. He has encouraged his son Stuart to pursue the business:the USDA recently awarded Stuart a $5,000 loan to start hisown operation. Leach also raises hard-shell clams and tends a19-head herd of cattle, though he makes most of his livingfrom the oysters.
Chris Davis, who in addition to raising oysters at PemaquidOyster Company directs the Maine Aquaculture InnovationCenter, thinks that Maine will see more small oyster farms likeJesse Leach’s. “Oyster aquaculture is very amenable to smallstart-ups,” he says, “because you don’t need a lot of capitalinvestment.” He estimates that oysters represent a $3 millionper year industry in Maine, an industry that produces wild,local, fresh, healthy food that is in demand by top restaurantsaround the continent.
What is it about oysters?To taste an oyster is to taste the sea, and to taste a Maine oys-ter is to taste the cold, clean, salty waters of the Maine coast.
Oysters feed by filtering algae and other particles from thewater, and so they take on the characteristics of the placewhere they live. The taste of oysters varies from river to riverdepending on the food they eat, and the temperature and
salinity of the water. So a Damariscotta River Pemaquid or aGlidden Point oyster differs from a Cousins River FlyingPoint, and a New Meadows River Winterpoint has a differenttaste than a Mill River Oak Point, which differs from a Baga-duce.
In colder regions like Maine, oysters filter water more slow-ly, and so they have more time to rest in their shell and devel-op the flavor of their home. As winter approaches, Maine oys-ters begin to stockpile glycogen in preparation for a sort ofhibernation. Glycogen makes them fat and sweet, and as aresult fall and winter are considered the best time to eat a
Maine oyster. The cold also keeps away the diseases that plagueoysters of more southerly waters.
Water quality is one of the biggest concerns of the oysterfarmer. While the filter-feeding oysters themselves actuallyhelp to keep the water clear, pollution can shut down oys-ter-growing areas for months. In 2005, a red tide caused bythe toxic single-cell algae Alexandrium kept the coast ofMaine closed for much of the summer. If a restaurant hasoysters on the menu, you can be sure they are safe to eat, how-ever, as the Maine Department of Marine Resources moni-tors levels of toxins in shellfish regularly during the red tideseason.
In A Geography of Oysters, Rowan Jacobsen wrote that oys-ters “have a somewhereness to them, like great wines, and in amass-produced society where most foods don’t seem to befrom anywhere, this makes them special.”
Maine oysters are even more special, says oysterman Jesse Leach.He says they are the best-flavored oysters in the world.
Catherine Schmitt is a science writer at Maine Sea Grant. Her most
recent article for Maine Boats, Homes & Harbors was “Seaweed Beyond
Sushi,” which appeared in the March 2007 issue.
To taste a Maine oyster is to tastethe cold, clean, salty waters of the
Maine coast.
