Fortunately, the number of oyster farms is increasing and these probably do not need the hard bottom conditions. Everything helps but nothing is going to remotely compare to the massive water-filtering action of oysters pre-colonizing in the Chesapeake or the coastal bays.

• in 1884 the high harvest for oysters was 15 million bushels
• In 2010 the annual harvest was 185,245 bushels
• The Chesapeake Bay has lost 99% of its historic oyster population
• At one point in time oysters were so plentiful they could filter the entire Chesapeake Bay in 3.3 days (83 billion oysters). Now it takes over 700 days to filter the entire bay and the oysters can’t filter fast enough to balance the ecosystem.