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 ♪♪ 

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-Samish Bay,

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200 years ago

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had about 2000 acres of dense
Olympia oyster beds.

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Enough Olympia oysters here,

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not just to provide
a first food

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for all of the tribes and
first nations that lived here,

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but also dense enough
to provide structured habitat.

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Structured Olympia
oyster beds there

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supportive of life,
a rich diversity of life.

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 ♪♪ 

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Olympia oyster
populations have declined.

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Habitat loss, pollution,

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and then we have over harvest

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so that they ceased
to be self-sustaining.

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-It happened in the late
1800s, early 1900s.

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The oyster industry 
here in Washington

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State was really created on
Olympia oysters.

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That was that was
the only oyster in the area.

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It's the only oyster native

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to the entire West
Coast of North America.

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Pulp mills were popping up.

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Sedimentation from logging

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was a big issue, smothering
Olympia oyster beds.

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Dense Olympia oyster
populations are capable of

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helping to make sure

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our waters are super clean
by filtering

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algae out of the water.

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Pacific oysters
were introduced in the 1930s

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and the commercial industry
really shifted their attention

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almost entirely away

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from Olympia oysters
and to Pacific oysters

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because they grow faster
and are easier to cultivate.

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To a large extent,

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people just kind of
forgot about Olympia oysters.

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I think it's

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estimated that there's less
than 4% of that dense

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aggregation of Olympia oysters
left in Puget Sound.

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-Samish Bay is sort
of one of those engines

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that we're trying to kick
start Olympia oyster engines,

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just because it's so important
for the whole region.

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-What we're restoring today

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is the only native oyster
from Baja

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all the way through southeast
Alaska.

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-It's a small oyster.

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It's a thin-shelled oyster,
but it is

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an amazingly resilient oyster.

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We're here not just to rebuild
populations,

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but also to rebuild
harvest areas.

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-Betsy Peabody founded

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Puget Sound Restoration
Fund in the late ‘90s.

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Around ten years ago,
we partnered with NOAA

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to build this shellfish lab,
the Kenneth K. Chew

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Center for Shellfish
Research and Restoration.

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We originally
built this facility

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to work with Olympia oysters
primarily,

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but we've since expanded
to include Pinto

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Abalone and bull kelp.
And we've worked

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on a number of
other species here as well.

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Pinto Abalone and
Olympia oysters have been food

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for people here
for thousands of years.

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Some Olympia oysters here
that are from the South

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Puget Sound. Our technique
for growing them is

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basically trying to trick them

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into thinking
that it's spring,

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which is their natural
reproductive season.

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And typically we're getting,
you know,

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at least a million
larvae a day.

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It took us

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quite a long time
to really figure out

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how to effectively grow

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Olympia oysters
for restoration projects.

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And we've learned
quite a lot over the years,

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you know, particularly
this facility, the Chew Center,

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has been super helpful
in allowing us to figure out,

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you know, the strategies
that are effective.

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So we also do
a lot of research here

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to support restoration
and to learn about how climate

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change and ocean acidification

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are going to impact our
local species and habitats.

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And here's
our abalone nursery.

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This is where we

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hold our abalone brood stock
and rear our juvenile abalone.

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Abalone have a special place
in my heart --

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pretty charismatic
for being little snails.

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-The foot. That’s their foot

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and then right
there is their mouth.

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And they also have two
little eyes and...

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-Being snails, they're actually grazers.
So they eat...

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they keep the

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surfaces of these rocky reef
habitats clear and clean for

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things like bull kelp spores
to attach to and grow off of.

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And there's a really tight
correlation between Pinto

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abalone and bull kelp forests.

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[underwater bubbles]

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[rolling waves]

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It's been determined
that without intervention,

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there would be no Pinto
abalone

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in Washington
state in the future.

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We're really trying
to figure out ways

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to increase their populations
in the San Juan Island area

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in particular.

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To do that, we've built out
a hatchery program here

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at the Chew Center
and we're out planting

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thousands of abalone every
year to the San Juan Islands.

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♪♪

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Here are our Olympia
oyster settlement tanks.

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So this is our product
basically that we create here

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in the hatchery.

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So if you look really closely,
you can see, you know,

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there's several oysters
on each one of these shells

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and they're pretty small there
around,

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you know, 2 to 3 millimeters
in shell length right now.

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But our goal is to get around

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ten oysters per shell.

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Once the oysters are
big enough on here,

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we'll take these shell bags

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directly
to the restoration sites.

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[shells clanking]

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-This is roughly 450 bags

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of seeded cultch produced
at our hatchery.

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There are roughly 300
shells in each of these bags,

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and there's an average of nine
Olympia oysters stacked

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per shell. 1.23
million Olympia oysters

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that are going to be spread
in Samish Bay.

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Oysters
need a couple of months

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to harden on the shell
for a while

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before we break open the bags
and spread the seed

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come August.

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We are partnering with

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Taylor Shellfish Company,
as well as

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many different tribes

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and with Washington Department
of Fish and Wildlife.

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We can start to create
a foothold

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for this oyster.

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[splashing waves]

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-We are at Smith Cove

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Port of Seattle Tide
Line property.

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The Port has asked us
to help them with enhancement

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of the Olympia oyster.

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We've brought some from
the Ken Chew hatchery.

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The oysters that are here
are successfully breeding

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now that they're adults
and that the natural set

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that we've observed is from
this source.

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This is the first time
that we've seen that evidence

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in the three years

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that we've been down here
looking for it.

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-Some of our big restoration
sites

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that have been really
successful,

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we're seeing oysters

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that densities
of several hundred

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per square meter
in some spots.

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-We are focused
on those habitat structures

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like oysters, like kelp

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that help
support salmon and orca.

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-This is where we live.

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And these are creatures
that are ecosystem engineers

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and super important

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sentinels of the health
of the Puget Sound

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and have been important to
humans for thousands of years

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along the coast of North
America.

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♪♪ 

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♪♪ 

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Watch City Stream

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Tuesday nights at seven
on the Seattle Channel

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or find us anytime
online at SeattleChannel.org.