THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Wednesday, December 20, 1995 TAG: 9512200401
SECTION: LOCAL PAGE: B1 EDITION: FINAL
SOURCE: BY SCOTT HARPER, STAFF WRITER
DATELINE: NEWPORT NEWS LENGTH: Medium: 93 lines
Live experiments with two types of Asian oysters will resume in Virginia this year in an attempt to biologically engineer a revival of oyster stocks in the Chesapeake Bay.
The Virginia Marine Resources Commission voted unanimously Tuesday for a $900,000 research project that several environmental groups oppose, for fear that a damaging new organism or other unforeseen side effects may result.
The state endorsed similar experiments in 1993. But they had to be stopped the following summer when several test oysters that were supposedly sterile suddenly showed signs of being fertile again.
But with the Virginia oyster industry reeling from a virtual extinction of native stocks in the lower Bay, due mostly to two deadly diseases that show no signs of letting up, the commission felt it had no choice.
``I think we'd be missing an opportunity not to move on this,'' said commission chairman William Pruitt.
The four-year project also has the backing of Gov. George F. Allen's administration, which sent a letter of support Tuesday, and was applauded by several seafood companies and merchants desperate to jump-start their industry.
Beginning this summer, scientists at the Virginia Institute of Marine Science will import and mate two foreign species of oysters in a quarantined laboratory at Gloucester Point. To ensure that foreign contaminants are not passed on, the parents will be killed after spawning their first American broods.
One pair will be Japanese oysters, now the most prolific species in the world. Through similar engineering, the oyster grows commercially on the West Coast and in Europe, and is largely responsible for France becoming an international leader in oyster production.
The other species is less known, originating from waters in India, Pakistan and China, said Roger Mann, an oyster expert at VIMS who will help oversee the Virginia experiments.
This oyster grows well in estuaries, such as the Bay, where fresh and salt water mix, and has developed nicely after being accidentally imported to the Pacific Northwest, Mann said.
The tricky part will not come until July 1998, when scientists are scheduled to plant several lab-raised oysters at strategic points throughout the Bay. The oysters will be submerged in cages to prevent any sudden population bursts, as some environmentalists fear.
The in-water experiments are necessary, Mann said, to test the oysters' resilience to one disease known as MSX. The disease, which literally starves an oyster to death but has no health effects on humans, cannot be copied in a lab setting, he said.
Scientists also need to see how other marine life interact with foreign oysters in the wild, Mann said.
``If we notice anything that's going in the wrong direction, the tests will be terminated,'' he said. ``There will be no efforts to short-cut these experiments here.''
Before Bay testing went astray in 1994, preliminary results showed the Japanese oyster was remarkably resistant to the two Bay diseases, MSX and Dermo. None was infected with MSX after two months of exposure, and only about 25 percent got Dermo, according to previous reports.
In looking to foreign species, state officials and scientists acknowledge that they hold out little hope that native stocks will ever recover sufficiently from decades of the diseases, pollution and overfishing.
Scientists have spent years trying to breed disease resistance into native oysters, but with marginal luck, they now admit.
``Our proposal is based upon the conviction that it is improbable that such resistance can be developed so as to achieve a sustainable stable production on formerly productive oyster bottoms,'' said VIMS director and acting dean L. Donelson Wright, in a letter asking for state support of the experiments.
Approval of the research came on the same day that Jim Wesson, state director of oyster restoration, offered a sobering review of this year's oyster harvest so far.
Since October, watermen have caught just 324 bushels of market-sized oysters from the James River and 186 bushels from a small stretch of the Rappahannock River opened this year, Wesson said.
The lower Bay is closed to public oystering again this season, as are other river systems in Virginia, mostly because there are no oysters there. The Virginia half of the Potomac River supports an oyster fishery, but Wesson had not yet calculated landings there. MEMO: THE TESTS
Beginning this summer, scientists at the Virginia Institute of Marine
Science will import and mate two foreign species of oysters in a
quarantined laboratory at Gloucester Point.
In July 1998, several of the lab-raised oysters will be placed at
points throughout the Bay in submerged cages to test their resistance to
the disease MSX.
KEYWORDS: OYSTERS by CNB