WEBVTT - Oysters & Aquaculture: On the Half Shell – Lab 073 0:00:00.720 --> 0:00:03.720 People think it's back to school season, but it's really 0:00:04.120 --> 0:00:05.160 a different season for me. 0:00:05.480 --> 0:00:07.680 Yeah, because we're not thinking about going to school anymore. 0:00:07.840 --> 0:00:09.680 Thankful you can keep the trapper keeper. 0:00:10.840 --> 0:00:13.480 I don't need it. I don't envy y'all that are 0:00:13.480 --> 0:00:16.280 thinking about Oh yeah, I gotta, you know, start thinking 0:00:16.320 --> 0:00:20.760 about classes. No, that time in my lives are ova. 0:00:22.440 --> 0:00:25.400 But there is a more interesting and pressing time of 0:00:25.400 --> 0:00:28.520 our life, and it is a celebration for us. Tomorrow 0:00:29.000 --> 0:00:30.640 is National Oyster Day. 0:00:30.960 --> 0:00:33.360 Zakeia and I have talked about food many a time 0:00:33.440 --> 0:00:38.440 on this podcast. Yes, and my friend also introduced me 0:00:38.680 --> 0:00:42.440 to oysters when I met her in grad school and 0:00:43.159 --> 0:00:46.600 changed my whole entire life. Did you know that that 0:00:46.680 --> 0:00:48.760 I had never had an oyster? I had never had 0:00:48.760 --> 0:00:51.839 an oyster. I didn't know that you didn't. We did 0:00:51.920 --> 0:00:55.440 a lot of culinary first together, Yes, but venturing into 0:00:55.480 --> 0:01:00.520 oysters was something that was new and surprisingly delicious for 0:01:00.600 --> 0:01:02.240 me because I'm really big in the texture. I know 0:01:02.240 --> 0:01:04.280 a lot of people don't eat oysters because of the texture, 0:01:04.720 --> 0:01:07.679 but I'm here to encourage all folks give it a try. 0:01:07.920 --> 0:01:10.680 It's good and based on the volume of oysters we're eating, 0:01:10.840 --> 0:01:13.160 we had to really ask like, what's going on with 0:01:13.200 --> 0:01:16.959 the oysters? Should we cut back? Should we you know, 0:01:17.040 --> 0:01:18.720 scale up the consumption? What's the deal? 0:01:18.959 --> 0:01:19.640 I know? Right? 0:01:20.120 --> 0:01:21.520 So, you know, we had to bring it to the lab. 0:01:22.240 --> 0:01:24.920 I'm t T and I'm Zachiah and from Spotify. 0:01:25.120 --> 0:01:47.360 This is Dope Labs. 0:01:51.840 --> 0:01:55.480 Welcome to Dope Labs, a weekly podcast that mixes hardcore science, 0:01:55.560 --> 0:01:57.720 pop culture, and a healthy dosa friendship. 0:01:58.120 --> 0:02:03.040 This week, we're talking all about aquaculture specifically, we really 0:02:03.040 --> 0:02:07.600 wanted to know more about oysters, our favorite delicacy, and 0:02:07.640 --> 0:02:11.560 how cultivating these shellfish fits into our economy, the environment 0:02:11.639 --> 0:02:12.720 and changing climate. 0:02:12.960 --> 0:02:15.280 Okay, so we have a question for you. Where are 0:02:15.320 --> 0:02:20.000 you on the shellfish spectrum? Are you a regular consumer 0:02:20.120 --> 0:02:22.560 of bivalves and crustaceans? So do you eat a lot 0:02:22.560 --> 0:02:25.120 of shrimp and crab and oysters? Are you a newbie? 0:02:25.160 --> 0:02:28.919 Have you just recently had your first oyster? Or are 0:02:29.000 --> 0:02:32.920 you keeping the industry afloat like me and TT? Be 0:02:33.000 --> 0:02:35.320 sure to answer the poll in the app right now. 0:02:35.440 --> 0:02:48.520 Let us know, let's get into the recitation, all right, TT, 0:02:48.800 --> 0:02:49.480 what do we know? 0:02:49.800 --> 0:02:52.720 Well? I think I know that it is oyster season 0:02:52.840 --> 0:02:57.040 and that National Oyster Day is August fifth. 0:02:56.960 --> 0:03:00.120 And we love the oysters, okay, but the habitat are 0:03:00.120 --> 0:03:03.440 our friends, the oysters. It's disappearing and a lot of 0:03:03.480 --> 0:03:07.000 that is related to land development, wetland lost, and pollution. 0:03:07.480 --> 0:03:11.560 We know that from our previous episode with doctor Ayana 0:03:11.600 --> 0:03:14.760 Elizabeth Johnson and we talked about this a little bit 0:03:15.080 --> 0:03:16.520 with doctor Nicholas Reyo. 0:03:17.120 --> 0:03:20.520 Yeah we did. That feels like forever ago, but yes, 0:03:20.680 --> 0:03:23.760 we have touched on this before. We also know that 0:03:24.200 --> 0:03:27.480 aquaculture is not just about oysters, even though we talk 0:03:27.520 --> 0:03:32.200 about oysters a lot. It's about the cultivation of fish, shellfish, 0:03:32.240 --> 0:03:33.480 and aquatic plants. 0:03:33.800 --> 0:03:36.120 But we know oysters are a huge part of the 0:03:36.160 --> 0:03:39.480 aquaculture movement. It feels like it's really growing, but I 0:03:39.600 --> 0:03:41.480 think that's about it. That's all we know. 0:03:43.440 --> 0:03:45.640 We are laser focused on those oysters. 0:03:46.440 --> 0:03:49.680 So let's jump into what we want to know tt So, I. 0:03:49.680 --> 0:03:53.000 Want to know how aquaculture has changed over the years 0:03:53.600 --> 0:03:56.400 and when did people start eating oysters. 0:03:56.040 --> 0:03:58.120 A long time ago? It was sustainable then, but is 0:03:58.120 --> 0:04:02.240 it sustainable now? If we consider what we know about 0:04:02.320 --> 0:04:04.880 dwindling populations, and we know what we're trying to do 0:04:05.040 --> 0:04:08.200 with oyster farming and aquaculture. A lot of times when 0:04:08.240 --> 0:04:10.680 we try to have interventions, we always end up messing 0:04:10.720 --> 0:04:12.960 up the environment, right, Like is this sustainable? 0:04:13.320 --> 0:04:16.160 Is this helpful? Like I'm such a good person, I'm 0:04:16.160 --> 0:04:18.600 helping Meanwhile, dump the farm? 0:04:18.800 --> 0:04:19.000 Right? 0:04:19.279 --> 0:04:23.120 And then my question is as all things are affected 0:04:23.160 --> 0:04:26.480 by climate change, we see everything is affected by it. 0:04:26.560 --> 0:04:30.359 I want to know how aquaculture is affected by climate 0:04:30.440 --> 0:04:34.240 change and what scientists are doing to combat that. 0:04:34.640 --> 0:04:38.280 And as the world's population grows, can aquaculture help us 0:04:38.320 --> 0:04:49.200 feed our planet. Let's jump into the dissections. 0:04:53.160 --> 0:04:55.880 Our guest for today's lab is doctor Bill Walton. 0:04:56.160 --> 0:04:58.920 My name is Bill Walton, the ACUFF Professor of Marine 0:04:59.000 --> 0:05:02.400 Science and the shell Fish Aquaculture Program Coordinator at the 0:05:02.480 --> 0:05:05.800 Virginia Institute of Marine Science here in Virginia out of 0:05:05.839 --> 0:05:06.880 College of William and Mary. 0:05:07.360 --> 0:05:12.280 Doctor Walton works with shellfish farmers, resource managers, and organizations 0:05:12.320 --> 0:05:17.240 to address the challenges of shellfish aquaculture and also identifies 0:05:17.279 --> 0:05:21.080 opportunities to develop this industry. Before we dive into our questions, 0:05:21.279 --> 0:05:24.640 we need to understand what aquaculture actually is. 0:05:25.160 --> 0:05:28.600 Aquaculture is the raising of organisms of any type, and 0:05:28.640 --> 0:05:32.520 that's plants, animals in an aquatic or marine environment. That 0:05:32.600 --> 0:05:36.520 means that you're doing something during the life cycle of 0:05:36.520 --> 0:05:40.240 that organism to help it succeed, so you've intervened in 0:05:40.320 --> 0:05:41.599 some way in that. 0:05:41.760 --> 0:05:45.200 So, as doctor Walton said, aquaculture is when people farm 0:05:45.360 --> 0:05:49.560 aquatic species. So it could be fish, shellfish, or even plants, 0:05:49.800 --> 0:05:53.240 and that can happen in both freshwater or marine environments. 0:05:53.480 --> 0:05:58.600 And people use aquaculture to pursue different goals like habitat restoration, 0:05:59.120 --> 0:06:03.280 trying to help threatened or endangered species, and of course 0:06:03.360 --> 0:06:03.839 for food. 0:06:04.200 --> 0:06:07.200 You know, I think my first introduction to aquaculture was 0:06:07.240 --> 0:06:11.680 when there was like farmed tilapia and farmed salmon, And 0:06:11.760 --> 0:06:14.560 so when I think about aquaculture, what comes to mind 0:06:14.600 --> 0:06:19.080 for me is like multiple tanks of PVC piping swimming 0:06:19.080 --> 0:06:21.760 pools of fish. Like that's what I think of. So 0:06:21.880 --> 0:06:24.320 what does aquaculture look like for shellfish? 0:06:24.640 --> 0:06:27.640 Let's take a minute to talk about the history of aquaculture. 0:06:28.000 --> 0:06:32.360 Humans have altered marine and freshwater environments in pursuit of 0:06:32.440 --> 0:06:35.799 food for thousands of years. We see this from indigenous 0:06:35.839 --> 0:06:39.599 communities around the world who use different cultivation methods to 0:06:39.760 --> 0:06:41.280 increase their harvests. 0:06:41.400 --> 0:06:44.279 But one of the things we also know is that 0:06:44.360 --> 0:06:46.520 in the last century we've had a lot of human 0:06:46.520 --> 0:06:51.200 intervention that has affected aquatic species, and so in response 0:06:51.240 --> 0:06:54.839 to that, we've seen a rapid acceleration in aquatic farming. 0:06:55.160 --> 0:06:58.880 There's been a drastic decline in oyster populations all over 0:06:58.880 --> 0:07:03.280 the world. Example, oyster populations are just a fraction of 0:07:03.400 --> 0:07:07.360 what they were like in the nineteen hundreds, and three 0:07:07.480 --> 0:07:11.040 fourths of the oyster eaves were lost due to over 0:07:11.120 --> 0:07:15.000 harvesting from eighteen sixty to nineteen twenty. That's just sixty years. 0:07:15.040 --> 0:07:18.920 That's someone's lifetime. We talked about how humans have disrupted 0:07:18.920 --> 0:07:22.040 the food system in our episode on biodiversity with doctor 0:07:22.160 --> 0:07:25.800 Ray Winn grant Well. Doctor Walton wants to help restore 0:07:25.840 --> 0:07:30.400 these populations while also helping coastal communities develop a new industry. 0:07:30.720 --> 0:07:34.880 Doctor Walton focuses specifically on shellfish and oyster farming. That's 0:07:34.880 --> 0:07:38.160 when people want to grow and sell oysters and shellfish. 0:07:38.280 --> 0:07:41.680 Oysters are mollusks or bivalves, and that's just a fancy 0:07:41.720 --> 0:07:44.040 way of saying they have two shells. 0:07:43.760 --> 0:07:46.680 And humans have developed a lot of different ways to 0:07:46.920 --> 0:07:49.240 grow and maintain these creatures. 0:07:49.600 --> 0:07:52.480 To understand how aquaculture works. We need to get an 0:07:52.520 --> 0:07:56.040 idea of the oyster life cycle in general. When oysters spawn, 0:07:56.280 --> 0:07:58.640 they kick out the eggs and sperm into the water, 0:07:58.720 --> 0:08:01.520 and those eggs and sperm meat fertilizing the egg and 0:08:01.560 --> 0:08:04.760 then you get a lot of growth in tiny little 0:08:04.800 --> 0:08:07.200 larvae floating in the water. And so the larvae float 0:08:07.200 --> 0:08:09.840 through the water until they can attach to a hard surface, 0:08:09.920 --> 0:08:12.600 and often they're attaching to other oyster shells. 0:08:12.840 --> 0:08:16.120 And once they're attached, those little oysters are called spat, 0:08:16.200 --> 0:08:19.720 and these spat don't have shells, so once they're settled, 0:08:19.720 --> 0:08:22.440 they start to put all their energy into their shell growth, 0:08:22.680 --> 0:08:25.840 and they do that by isolating calcium carbonate from the 0:08:25.840 --> 0:08:26.520 water column. 0:08:26.600 --> 0:08:29.600 And so when those generations of oysters grow, one set 0:08:29.600 --> 0:08:31.040 of oysters on top of another set on top of 0:08:31.040 --> 0:08:33.040 another set, you get shell clusters and those are called 0:08:33.080 --> 0:08:37.640 oyster reefs or oyster beds, and the oysters grow there 0:08:37.640 --> 0:08:39.480 for the rest of their lives. And this is not 0:08:39.520 --> 0:08:42.040 a short growth process. The oysters that we see at 0:08:42.080 --> 0:08:45.720 the table are usually about two to three years old 0:08:46.400 --> 0:08:48.280 because they're growing at about an inch a year. 0:08:48.640 --> 0:08:51.320 And this life cycle that we just describe, it's full 0:08:51.360 --> 0:08:52.400 of a lot of dangers. 0:08:52.720 --> 0:08:55.200 Most of those, in fact would be lost. They'd either 0:08:55.240 --> 0:08:58.400 be eaten or washed away. They wouldn't survive. But in 0:08:58.440 --> 0:09:01.120 a hatchery, we can make sure that most of them survived. 0:09:01.360 --> 0:09:03.840 So taking all of this into account, we ask doctor 0:09:03.880 --> 0:09:08.000 Walton to describe what a modern oyster aquaculture setup actually 0:09:08.080 --> 0:09:10.880 looks like. And the hatchery is the first step of 0:09:11.120 --> 0:09:14.720 modern oyster aquaculture, and a hatcherie is an environment that 0:09:14.880 --> 0:09:17.000 encourages the oysters to reproduce. 0:09:17.240 --> 0:09:21.280 Hatcheries do that by mimicking and amplifying what happens naturally, 0:09:21.520 --> 0:09:23.720 so they're increasing the yield of each batch. 0:09:23.920 --> 0:09:27.120 We induce them to spawn. That's one way to do it, 0:09:27.160 --> 0:09:29.480 where you just change the temperature for the oysters and 0:09:29.520 --> 0:09:33.440 you convince them that it's spring and so they spawn 0:09:33.520 --> 0:09:35.440 for you. And that should be more romantic than it is. 0:09:35.520 --> 0:09:39.880 But essentially oyster spawning is throwing their gam meats out 0:09:39.880 --> 0:09:42.120 into the ocean or the river, and those gam meats 0:09:42.120 --> 0:09:44.120 have to find each other up in the water. 0:09:44.520 --> 0:09:47.960 Those are called broadcast spawners. In the water, most of 0:09:48.040 --> 0:09:50.600 the spawn would be lost. They're going to be eaten 0:09:50.679 --> 0:09:53.040 by other fish or different things that are in the water, 0:09:53.160 --> 0:09:55.760 or just simply washed away with the tide. But in 0:09:55.800 --> 0:09:58.040 a hatchery, you don't have that same problem. 0:09:58.280 --> 0:10:01.560 And at that point we care the babies called farv 0:10:01.840 --> 0:10:03.960 We care for them for about two weeks and we 0:10:04.000 --> 0:10:05.960 make sure they have all the food and oxygen and 0:10:05.960 --> 0:10:08.880 clean water that they need, and then they go through 0:10:08.920 --> 0:10:12.440 what's called metamorphosis. And so some audience members will remember 0:10:12.520 --> 0:10:15.960 high school biology where a caterpillar becomes the butterflies. So 0:10:16.480 --> 0:10:21.000 that swimming microscopic baby oyster in this case decides to 0:10:21.000 --> 0:10:23.240 stop swimming and it goes through metamorphosis and it goes 0:10:23.280 --> 0:10:26.199 down to the bottom and it wants to attach to something. 0:10:26.520 --> 0:10:29.960 So at the hatchery they're just increasing the survival rate 0:10:30.160 --> 0:10:33.840 of these oysters. And once that process takes place, that's 0:10:33.840 --> 0:10:37.240 what we call a seed, and those are the baby oysters. 0:10:37.280 --> 0:10:40.120 And if you're an oyster farmer, you're gonna then buy 0:10:40.679 --> 0:10:44.840 those seeds for you to grow oysters. And so you 0:10:44.880 --> 0:10:49.040 can buy them, buy the thousands or millions, and then 0:10:49.120 --> 0:10:50.880 you can start to raise them. 0:10:51.080 --> 0:10:52.960 I don't usually like to think about buying things on 0:10:53.000 --> 0:10:55.760 the thousands or millions, but you can buy a thousand 0:10:55.760 --> 0:10:58.280 of those oysters for about ten to twenty dollars. 0:10:58.520 --> 0:11:00.439 Wow, right, that's cheap. 0:11:00.880 --> 0:11:03.160 That is that's incredible value. 0:11:03.360 --> 0:11:04.880 Do I want a little oysters? 0:11:04.960 --> 0:11:07.280 We have to find a place to put them, because 0:11:07.440 --> 0:11:11.720 when you're farming oysters, it seems like they need to 0:11:11.760 --> 0:11:15.480 be in naturally occurring water. Bathtub water won't do. 0:11:15.800 --> 0:11:29.000 Okay, my Brita filter won't work. So those indoor farms 0:11:29.040 --> 0:11:32.120 that we had talked about and imagined all the oysters 0:11:32.160 --> 0:11:34.360 being grown in, they pop into our minds when we 0:11:34.400 --> 0:11:39.200 think about aquaculture, but they aren't really economically viable. And 0:11:39.240 --> 0:11:42.960 that's because when you provide that oyster seed with food 0:11:43.080 --> 0:11:47.240 and oxygen, it grows into a really hungry oyster and 0:11:47.280 --> 0:11:51.040 you need more space that an indoor environment might not 0:11:51.120 --> 0:11:52.199 be able to provide. 0:11:52.480 --> 0:11:56.320 And doctor Walton says, you also need a lot more food. 0:11:56.800 --> 0:12:02.440 Very quickly juvenile oyster becomes feed me see more little shops. 0:12:04.559 --> 0:12:08.400 So you have this like incredible demand for food. These 0:12:08.520 --> 0:12:12.240 shellfish are really good at eating the microscopic plants. And 0:12:12.320 --> 0:12:15.439 so when you start to scale that up and say, okay, 0:12:15.440 --> 0:12:17.920 I'll start a factory for shellfish in the middle of 0:12:17.960 --> 0:12:20.360 the country, and I'm going to try to like raise 0:12:20.440 --> 0:12:25.520 all the food for them under controlled conditions. Technically, I 0:12:25.520 --> 0:12:27.480 guess you could probably do it, but I have a 0:12:27.559 --> 0:12:30.520 very hard time imagining that somebody could turn that into 0:12:30.559 --> 0:12:33.920 something that's sort of an economic reality. And so all 0:12:33.960 --> 0:12:38.360 the shellfish farms that I have seen rely on working 0:12:38.400 --> 0:12:41.360 with the natural environment and being out in coastal waters. 0:12:41.640 --> 0:12:46.439 So the economic forces behind aquaculture push people to use 0:12:46.640 --> 0:12:52.760 offshore locations in natural waters because it's actually more financially feasible, 0:12:53.040 --> 0:12:56.160 and like you were saying, better for the oyster, because 0:12:56.160 --> 0:12:57.880 there's more food available naturally. 0:12:58.200 --> 0:13:02.280 When I'm first growing your seed, they're about one millimeter 0:13:02.480 --> 0:13:04.920 and so that's you can see them, but they're very small. 0:13:04.960 --> 0:13:08.800 They look like grains of sand. You might on that screen. 0:13:08.880 --> 0:13:11.680 You might be putting a quarter of a million to 0:13:11.760 --> 0:13:14.400 half a million of those grains of sand on one 0:13:14.760 --> 0:13:16.959 and the seawater that's flowing by them is going to 0:13:17.000 --> 0:13:19.040 bring them enough food and oxygen that they'll grow. 0:13:19.400 --> 0:13:22.839 And doctor Walton is being modest. Oysters require a lot 0:13:22.920 --> 0:13:26.359 of food and oxygen. You'd need a lot of money 0:13:26.400 --> 0:13:29.360 to keep those bivalves fed. Like if you are going 0:13:29.400 --> 0:13:32.280 to be a farmer, there's places that you can go 0:13:32.520 --> 0:13:36.240 where they've taken little seeds and developed them into seedlings. Yeah, 0:13:36.480 --> 0:13:39.760 and the oyster farmer is buying the seedlings and then 0:13:39.840 --> 0:13:41.679 cultivating those into big It's like. 0:13:41.600 --> 0:13:44.320 What people do for their gardens. When you want to start, 0:13:44.480 --> 0:13:47.960 you know, growing tomatoes or if you want to grow basil, 0:13:48.000 --> 0:13:51.240 maybe you'll go to a nursery that have already started 0:13:51.240 --> 0:13:53.840 growing them in those little plastic containers and then you 0:13:53.880 --> 0:13:55.600 take it home and you plant it in your garden 0:13:55.640 --> 0:13:58.440 and then you can go and start growing your own 0:13:58.480 --> 0:14:01.680 vegetable garden or growing your own are growing whatever you 0:14:01.679 --> 0:14:04.200 can get the bulbs or the seeds that have already 0:14:04.200 --> 0:14:06.600 started to grow, and you put them that someone has 0:14:06.679 --> 0:14:09.800 made a habitat where they can have a healthy beginning 0:14:09.880 --> 0:14:12.320 to their lives. And then you take them as that 0:14:12.400 --> 0:14:15.160 little seedling that has started to grow, you put them 0:14:15.240 --> 0:14:17.800 in a new environment and you continue to nurture them 0:14:17.840 --> 0:14:19.040 into their adulthood. 0:14:19.240 --> 0:14:22.320 And you know, just like a home garden. For oyster farmers, 0:14:22.320 --> 0:14:26.720 there are multiple setups that they can develop to grow 0:14:26.800 --> 0:14:30.800 those oysters. So one of the first examples that doctor 0:14:30.800 --> 0:14:33.640 Walton walked us through is an oyster farm. 0:14:33.920 --> 0:14:36.680 So we're gonna be talking broadly about two different systems 0:14:36.880 --> 0:14:40.440 on bottom farms and off bottom farms, not to be 0:14:40.480 --> 0:14:46.080 confused with bikini bottom farms. So if we're the oyster 0:14:46.160 --> 0:14:48.840 farmers and we have these seeds, we have to think 0:14:48.880 --> 0:14:52.680 about where they go. And on bottom farming, the farmers 0:14:52.720 --> 0:14:55.800 are creating a hospitable area at the bottom of the 0:14:55.840 --> 0:14:58.040 water body for their oysters to grow. 0:14:58.440 --> 0:15:00.000 We get in a boat and we go out of 0:15:00.080 --> 0:15:03.640 the river here and you might just see corner posts 0:15:03.680 --> 0:15:06.320 like poles sticking up out of the water, and I 0:15:06.360 --> 0:15:09.800 would just have to assure you that there are private leases, 0:15:09.880 --> 0:15:13.000 what we call private leases, that are being farmed on 0:15:13.040 --> 0:15:13.680 the bottom there. 0:15:13.920 --> 0:15:16.840 So those seeds that you've purchased, those little baby oysters, 0:15:17.160 --> 0:15:19.640 the kid oysters, you're trying to make your land more 0:15:19.640 --> 0:15:21.360 attractive so that they stay there. 0:15:21.440 --> 0:15:24.480 And those look very much like what a natural oyster 0:15:24.560 --> 0:15:27.120 bed looks like. The typical thing actually that you put 0:15:27.160 --> 0:15:30.000 down would be oyster shell. So you essentially take the 0:15:30.040 --> 0:15:32.880 bottom that was soft mud, and because it's your lease, 0:15:33.320 --> 0:15:35.440 you decide that you're going to improve that bottom by 0:15:35.480 --> 0:15:37.960 putting oyster shell on it. We call that culting. And 0:15:38.000 --> 0:15:41.080 when you culch, you're improving that habitat so that you're 0:15:41.120 --> 0:15:44.800 going to hopefully attract juvenile oysters. We call them spat 0:15:44.960 --> 0:15:47.280 that the spat will settle on your lease, and so 0:15:47.680 --> 0:15:49.440 you essentially getting a productive area. 0:15:49.640 --> 0:15:51.600 So what they're doing is culture. They're trying to improve 0:15:51.640 --> 0:15:54.280 the habitat. This is the equivalent of you adding fertilizer 0:15:54.360 --> 0:15:56.240 or something to your soil in the area where you are. 0:15:56.280 --> 0:15:59.200 Oysters want something to attach to, so you add things 0:15:59.240 --> 0:16:01.760 in onto the bottom of the water where you're going 0:16:01.800 --> 0:16:04.800 to be growing them to make it attractive for the oysters. 0:16:05.040 --> 0:16:08.040 Another form of on bottom farming is when cages or 0:16:08.160 --> 0:16:09.960 mesh containers sit on the seafloor. 0:16:10.240 --> 0:16:12.600 You might see a number of buoys on the surface, 0:16:12.640 --> 0:16:13.880 and that would look a little bit like if we 0:16:13.880 --> 0:16:16.200 were going out and we saw crab traps or lobster 0:16:16.280 --> 0:16:19.920 traps somewhere, and in that case, we'd bring the boat 0:16:20.000 --> 0:16:21.920 up and we would go to those buoys. In there, 0:16:22.160 --> 0:16:25.120 it's a cage or a basket that's sitting on the 0:16:25.120 --> 0:16:28.160 bottom and the oysters are sitting inside those bags, and 0:16:28.200 --> 0:16:30.040 we would bring that. We'd bring that cage up to 0:16:30.120 --> 0:16:32.560 the surface and you'd see that it's full of oysters. 0:16:32.840 --> 0:16:35.320 So it's a mesh container that the oysters are living 0:16:35.360 --> 0:16:38.640 in but since it's sitting on the bottom of the ocean, 0:16:39.000 --> 0:16:42.680 other little friends that are also living in the ocean 0:16:43.080 --> 0:16:46.920 can get in there as well. You know, some uninvited guests, 0:16:47.000 --> 0:16:48.440 but I guess they're welcome. 0:16:49.120 --> 0:16:51.440 Yes, And although it may seem like a nuisance, this 0:16:51.560 --> 0:16:55.880 is actually great because this is evidence that for aquaculture farming, 0:16:56.040 --> 0:17:00.520 and specifically oyster farming, these mesh containers create habitat for 0:17:00.960 --> 0:17:05.639 other critters, so other members of this ecosystem to also 0:17:05.800 --> 0:17:09.280 live and thrive. So, yes, you're doing it for the oysters, 0:17:09.520 --> 0:17:12.240 but the homies are coming along too, and they bringing groceries. 0:17:14.920 --> 0:17:17.480 I was just at of some farms recently and we 0:17:17.600 --> 0:17:20.280 spent time picking up all the eels that had come 0:17:20.359 --> 0:17:22.399 up with it that immediately started to bail out of 0:17:22.440 --> 0:17:23.720 the gauge because they didn't want to be out of 0:17:23.760 --> 0:17:25.399 the water, and so we just scooped them up and 0:17:25.400 --> 0:17:28.840 got them back overboard. So you see lots of marine 0:17:28.880 --> 0:17:30.560 life in amongst these things. 0:17:30.440 --> 0:17:32.879 All right. So that's farming on the bottom of the 0:17:32.880 --> 0:17:36.720 seafloor or a river bit off. Bottom farming is when 0:17:36.760 --> 0:17:39.960 the shellfish grow in a mesh container suspend it near 0:17:40.040 --> 0:17:41.440 the surface of the water. 0:17:41.840 --> 0:17:45.240 The other version that somebody might see would be going 0:17:45.240 --> 0:17:48.119 out on the water and seeing baskets or bags floating 0:17:48.200 --> 0:17:50.320 up at the surface. And so the animals in this 0:17:50.359 --> 0:17:53.879 case are living right below the water surface and they 0:17:53.880 --> 0:17:56.480 have some type of floatation something that's keeping them up 0:17:56.800 --> 0:18:00.760 near the surface, and it's a mesh bag dently, that's 0:18:00.920 --> 0:18:04.480 just holding the animal, the oysters or the clams or 0:18:04.520 --> 0:18:07.879 the scallops, holding it in that bag in the water, 0:18:08.240 --> 0:18:11.960 and then you're letting it feed on the natural microscopic 0:18:12.000 --> 0:18:14.520 plants what we call the phytoplank then let it feed 0:18:14.560 --> 0:18:18.080 on what's in the water. And so because of that, 0:18:18.119 --> 0:18:20.879 they reflect the flavor of where they're grown. But it 0:18:20.880 --> 0:18:23.720 does also mean that you really aren't in a position 0:18:24.280 --> 0:18:27.520 to medicate these things, that you're not in a position 0:18:27.680 --> 0:18:30.960 to feed them something. They are relying on what's in 0:18:31.000 --> 0:18:31.440 the water. 0:18:31.800 --> 0:18:34.000 Now, we didn't cover all the different ways that people 0:18:34.040 --> 0:18:36.879 farm oysters, because there are some in between methods that 0:18:36.960 --> 0:18:39.359 involve being in the water and then out of the water. 0:18:40.240 --> 0:18:43.119 Just know that people are getting to the oysters a 0:18:43.160 --> 0:18:44.080 lot of different ways. 0:18:44.320 --> 0:18:47.600 It's really cool to hear about how these farmers are 0:18:47.640 --> 0:18:52.520 able to farm oysters in so many different ways that 0:18:52.560 --> 0:18:55.440 actually mimic their natural environment. 0:18:56.440 --> 0:18:58.840 This makes a lot more sense than my original idea 0:18:59.000 --> 0:19:04.200 of swimming pools of oysters. The elephant in the room 0:19:04.240 --> 0:19:07.040 here is that most of our oyster reefs and most 0:19:07.040 --> 0:19:10.480 of our environment that existed for oysters to grow on 0:19:10.840 --> 0:19:14.000 and to thrive and flourish is gone. Right, So you 0:19:14.160 --> 0:19:17.639 have farmers creating these artificial reefs with mesh bags and 0:19:17.680 --> 0:19:21.520 cages that are benefiting oysters and other organisms and other 0:19:21.600 --> 0:19:25.480 sea creatures that normally wouldn't have a home. Yeah, Doctor 0:19:25.560 --> 0:19:28.960 Iana Elizabeth Johnson talked about the Billion Oyster Project, which 0:19:29.000 --> 0:19:32.760 has efforts to do that exactly, Yes, right in the 0:19:32.840 --> 0:19:34.679 Hudson Bay. And so we see people doing this in 0:19:34.720 --> 0:19:38.160 the Chesapeake Bay and along the waterways in the Gulf 0:19:38.320 --> 0:19:43.080 in Louisiana and Alabama. These environments in these small aqua 0:19:43.160 --> 0:19:47.560 farming communities have been affected by these changing natural environments, 0:19:47.720 --> 0:19:51.280 and so one of the widespread impacts of the aquaculture 0:19:51.320 --> 0:19:56.440 industry is to restore those communities' ability to make economic 0:19:56.480 --> 0:19:59.840 progress through oyster farming and different shellfish farming. 0:20:00.080 --> 0:20:01.960 We're going to take a quick break, and when we 0:20:02.000 --> 0:20:05.399 get back, we'll talk about the economics around aquaculture and 0:20:05.440 --> 0:20:27.360 its place in a warming planet. On next week's Lab, 0:20:27.400 --> 0:20:31.600 we're talking all about forever chemicals, what they are, where 0:20:31.600 --> 0:20:34.240 there are, and how we can move around them. 0:20:34.600 --> 0:20:37.120 In the meantime, let's get back to the lab. We've 0:20:37.119 --> 0:20:40.680 been talking to doctor Bill Walton about oyster farming and aquaculture. 0:20:41.080 --> 0:20:43.800 Now we're going to consider what aquaculture means for a 0:20:43.920 --> 0:20:45.000 growing population. 0:20:45.440 --> 0:20:49.920 It's a really good question. Does aquaculture fit the bill? 0:20:50.119 --> 0:20:52.960 Can it help us feed the world as our population 0:20:53.119 --> 0:20:54.040 continues to grow? 0:20:54.359 --> 0:20:56.719 The world population is growing, we know that we have 0:20:56.840 --> 0:21:01.760 to provide food and that there's to me just sort 0:21:01.760 --> 0:21:05.359 of the ethical requirement of thinking of ways how do 0:21:05.400 --> 0:21:08.480 we produce that food in a way that also minimizes 0:21:08.520 --> 0:21:11.520 the environmental impact while we do that. When we look 0:21:11.560 --> 0:21:14.879 to the oceans, we know that the total world harvest 0:21:14.960 --> 0:21:18.200 from fisheries has leveled off essentially, I think at least 0:21:18.240 --> 0:21:21.040 for the past two decades, if not more so. The 0:21:21.040 --> 0:21:24.520 world population human population is growing, and we think we 0:21:24.600 --> 0:21:28.000 might be getting as much seafood from the fisheries of 0:21:28.040 --> 0:21:28.720 the world as we. 0:21:28.680 --> 0:21:32.320 Can, getting as much as we can so are we 0:21:32.359 --> 0:21:36.199 saying it's leveled out or is decreasing now did it 0:21:36.280 --> 0:21:39.040 used to be increasing like or do we have more 0:21:39.080 --> 0:21:41.720 people eating fish and they used to so the demand 0:21:42.000 --> 0:21:43.080 I have some questions. 0:21:43.359 --> 0:21:46.560 The number of wild caught fish and shellfish has plateaued, 0:21:46.600 --> 0:21:49.439 so it hasn't stayed, but the amount of fish and 0:21:49.560 --> 0:21:53.760 other organisms harvested through aquaculture has grown, and doctor Walton 0:21:53.880 --> 0:21:57.280 says aquaculture could be a major source of sustainable food. 0:21:57.680 --> 0:21:59.879 You know what I think about a lot, what's that 0:22:00.440 --> 0:22:05.800 the growing population of this world. I think that we 0:22:06.080 --> 0:22:09.359 have to start thinking about how we're going to produce 0:22:10.280 --> 0:22:14.880 enough food as our population is growing, like, we have 0:22:14.960 --> 0:22:18.760 to be able to feed everyone. Of course, oysters aren't 0:22:18.800 --> 0:22:22.399 the perfect solution. One reason is that they're pretty expensive. 0:22:22.840 --> 0:22:25.520