Everything about Ostreola totally explained
The
Olympia oyster,
Ostreola conchaphila, is the native
oyster of the
Pacific coast of
North America from
Alaska to
Mexico. The name is derived from the important
19th century oyster industry near
Olympia, Washington, in
Puget Sound.
Native American peoples consumed
O. conchaphila everywhere it was found, with consumption in
San Francisco Bay so intense that enormous
middens of oyster shells were piled over thousands of years. One of the largest such mounds, the
Emeryville Shellmound, near the mouth of
Temescal Creek and the eastern end of the
San Francisco-Oakland Bay Bridge, is now buried under the Bay Street shopping center.
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O. conchaphila nearly disappeared from San Francisco Bay following overharvest during the
California Gold Rush (
1848-50s) and massive silting from
hydraulic mining in
California's
Sierra Nevada (1850s-1880s). California's most valuable fishery from the 1880s-1910s was based on imported
Atlantic oysters, not the absent native. But in the 1990s,
O. conchaphila once again appeared in San Francisco Bay, surprisingly in some of the most polluted waters of the bay near the
Chevron Oil refinery in
Richmond, California.
Species restoration projects for the Olympia oyster funded by the U.S. Government are active in
Puget Sound and
San Francisco Bay. An active restoration project is taking place in Liberty Bay, Washington. This Puget Sound location is the home of an old and new Olympia oyster population. The re-establishment of the population is currently threatened by the invasive Japanese oyster drill
Ocinabrina inorata. This species preys on the oysters by drilling a hole between the two valves and digesting the oyster's tissues.
O. inornata is a threat to the oyster especially in areas with low populations of the mussle
Mytillus.
Further Information
Get more info on 'Ostreola'.
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