Speaker 1: People think it's back to school season, but it's really
Speaker 1: a different season for me.
Speaker 2: Yeah, because we're not thinking about going to school anymore.
Speaker 1: Thankful you can keep the trapper keeper.
Speaker 2: I don't need it. I don't envy y'all that are
Speaker 2: thinking about Oh yeah, I gotta, you know, start thinking
Speaker 2: about classes. No, that time in my lives are ova.
Speaker 1: But there is a more interesting and pressing time of
Speaker 1: our life, and it is a celebration for us. Tomorrow
Speaker 1: is National Oyster Day.
Speaker 2: Zakeia and I have talked about food many a time
Speaker 2: on this podcast. Yes, and my friend also introduced me
Speaker 2: to oysters when I met her in grad school and
Speaker 2: changed my whole entire life. Did you know that that
Speaker 2: I had never had an oyster? I had never had
Speaker 2: an oyster. I didn't know that you didn't. We did
Speaker 2: a lot of culinary first together, Yes, but venturing into
Speaker 2: oysters was something that was new and surprisingly delicious for
Speaker 2: me because I'm really big in the texture. I know
Speaker 2: a lot of people don't eat oysters because of the texture,
Speaker 2: but I'm here to encourage all folks give it a try.
Speaker 1: It's good and based on the volume of oysters we're eating,
Speaker 1: we had to really ask like, what's going on with
Speaker 1: the oysters? Should we cut back? Should we you know,
Speaker 1: scale up the consumption? What's the deal?
Speaker 2: I know? Right?
Speaker 1: So, you know, we had to bring it to the lab.
Speaker 1: I'm t T and I'm Zachiah and from Spotify.
Speaker 2: This is Dope Labs.
Speaker 1: Welcome to Dope Labs, a weekly podcast that mixes hardcore science,
Speaker 1: pop culture, and a healthy dosa friendship.
Speaker 2: This week, we're talking all about aquaculture specifically, we really
Speaker 2: wanted to know more about oysters, our favorite delicacy, and
Speaker 2: how cultivating these shellfish fits into our economy, the environment
Speaker 2: and changing climate.
Speaker 1: Okay, so we have a question for you. Where are
Speaker 1: you on the shellfish spectrum? Are you a regular consumer
Speaker 1: of bivalves and crustaceans? So do you eat a lot
Speaker 1: of shrimp and crab and oysters? Are you a newbie?
Speaker 1: Have you just recently had your first oyster? Or are
Speaker 1: you keeping the industry afloat like me and TT? Be
Speaker 1: sure to answer the poll in the app right now.
Speaker 1: Let us know, let's get into the recitation, all right, TT,
Speaker 1: what do we know?
Speaker 2: Well? I think I know that it is oyster season
Speaker 2: and that National Oyster Day is August fifth.
Speaker 1: And we love the oysters, okay, but the habitat are
Speaker 1: our friends, the oysters. It's disappearing and a lot of
Speaker 1: that is related to land development, wetland lost, and pollution.
Speaker 1: We know that from our previous episode with doctor Ayana
Speaker 1: Elizabeth Johnson and we talked about this a little bit
Speaker 1: with doctor Nicholas Reyo.
Speaker 2: Yeah we did. That feels like forever ago, but yes,
Speaker 2: we have touched on this before. We also know that
Speaker 2: aquaculture is not just about oysters, even though we talk
Speaker 2: about oysters a lot. It's about the cultivation of fish, shellfish,
Speaker 2: and aquatic plants.
Speaker 1: But we know oysters are a huge part of the
Speaker 1: aquaculture movement. It feels like it's really growing, but I
Speaker 1: think that's about it. That's all we know.
Speaker 2: We are laser focused on those oysters.
Speaker 1: So let's jump into what we want to know tt So, I.
Speaker 2: Want to know how aquaculture has changed over the years
Speaker 2: and when did people start eating oysters.
Speaker 1: A long time ago? It was sustainable then, but is
Speaker 1: it sustainable now? If we consider what we know about
Speaker 1: dwindling populations, and we know what we're trying to do
Speaker 1: with oyster farming and aquaculture. A lot of times when
Speaker 1: we try to have interventions, we always end up messing
Speaker 1: up the environment, right, Like is this sustainable?
Speaker 2: Is this helpful? Like I'm such a good person, I'm
Speaker 2: helping Meanwhile, dump the farm?
Speaker 3: Right?
Speaker 2: And then my question is as all things are affected
Speaker 2: by climate change, we see everything is affected by it.
Speaker 2: I want to know how aquaculture is affected by climate
Speaker 2: change and what scientists are doing to combat that.
Speaker 1: And as the world's population grows, can aquaculture help us
Speaker 1: feed our planet. Let's jump into the dissections.
Speaker 2: Our guest for today's lab is doctor Bill Walton.
Speaker 3: My name is Bill Walton, the ACUFF Professor of Marine
Speaker 3: Science and the shell Fish Aquaculture Program Coordinator at the
Speaker 3: Virginia Institute of Marine Science here in Virginia out of
Speaker 3: College of William and Mary.
Speaker 2: Doctor Walton works with shellfish farmers, resource managers, and organizations
Speaker 2: to address the challenges of shellfish aquaculture and also identifies
Speaker 2: opportunities to develop this industry. Before we dive into our questions,
Speaker 2: we need to understand what aquaculture actually is.
Speaker 3: Aquaculture is the raising of organisms of any type, and
Speaker 3: that's plants, animals in an aquatic or marine environment. That
Speaker 3: means that you're doing something during the life cycle of
Speaker 3: that organism to help it succeed, so you've intervened in
Speaker 3: some way in that.
Speaker 1: So, as doctor Walton said, aquaculture is when people farm
Speaker 1: aquatic species. So it could be fish, shellfish, or even plants,
Speaker 1: and that can happen in both freshwater or marine environments.
Speaker 2: And people use aquaculture to pursue different goals like habitat restoration,
Speaker 2: trying to help threatened or endangered species, and of course
Speaker 2: for food.
Speaker 1: You know, I think my first introduction to aquaculture was
Speaker 1: when there was like farmed tilapia and farmed salmon, And
Speaker 1: so when I think about aquaculture, what comes to mind
Speaker 1: for me is like multiple tanks of PVC piping swimming
Speaker 1: pools of fish. Like that's what I think of. So
Speaker 1: what does aquaculture look like for shellfish?
Speaker 2: Let's take a minute to talk about the history of aquaculture.
Speaker 2: Humans have altered marine and freshwater environments in pursuit of
Speaker 2: food for thousands of years. We see this from indigenous
Speaker 2: communities around the world who use different cultivation methods to
Speaker 2: increase their harvests.
Speaker 1: But one of the things we also know is that
Speaker 1: in the last century we've had a lot of human
Speaker 1: intervention that has affected aquatic species, and so in response
Speaker 1: to that, we've seen a rapid acceleration in aquatic farming.
Speaker 2: There's been a drastic decline in oyster populations all over
Speaker 2: the world. Example, oyster populations are just a fraction of
Speaker 2: what they were like in the nineteen hundreds, and three
Speaker 2: fourths of the oyster eaves were lost due to over
Speaker 2: harvesting from eighteen sixty to nineteen twenty. That's just sixty years.
Speaker 2: That's someone's lifetime. We talked about how humans have disrupted
Speaker 2: the food system in our episode on biodiversity with doctor
Speaker 2: Ray Winn grant Well. Doctor Walton wants to help restore
Speaker 2: these populations while also helping coastal communities develop a new industry.
Speaker 2: Doctor Walton focuses specifically on shellfish and oyster farming. That's
Speaker 2: when people want to grow and sell oysters and shellfish.
Speaker 1: Oysters are mollusks or bivalves, and that's just a fancy
Speaker 1: way of saying they have two shells.
Speaker 2: And humans have developed a lot of different ways to
Speaker 2: grow and maintain these creatures.
Speaker 1: To understand how aquaculture works. We need to get an
Speaker 1: idea of the oyster life cycle in general. When oysters spawn,
Speaker 1: they kick out the eggs and sperm into the water,
Speaker 1: and those eggs and sperm meat fertilizing the egg and
Speaker 1: then you get a lot of growth in tiny little
Speaker 1: larvae floating in the water. And so the larvae float
Speaker 1: through the water until they can attach to a hard surface,
Speaker 1: and often they're attaching to other oyster shells.
Speaker 2: And once they're attached, those little oysters are called spat,
Speaker 2: and these spat don't have shells, so once they're settled,
Speaker 2: they start to put all their energy into their shell growth,
Speaker 2: and they do that by isolating calcium carbonate from the
Speaker 2: water column.
Speaker 1: And so when those generations of oysters grow, one set
Speaker 1: of oysters on top of another set on top of
Speaker 1: another set, you get shell clusters and those are called
Speaker 1: oyster reefs or oyster beds, and the oysters grow there
Speaker 1: for the rest of their lives. And this is not
Speaker 1: a short growth process. The oysters that we see at
Speaker 1: the table are usually about two to three years old
Speaker 1: because they're growing at about an inch a year.
Speaker 2: And this life cycle that we just describe, it's full
Speaker 2: of a lot of dangers.
Speaker 3: Most of those, in fact would be lost. They'd either
Speaker 3: be eaten or washed away. They wouldn't survive. But in
Speaker 3: a hatchery, we can make sure that most of them survived.
Speaker 2: So taking all of this into account, we ask doctor
Speaker 2: Walton to describe what a modern oyster aquaculture setup actually
Speaker 2: looks like. And the hatchery is the first step of
Speaker 2: modern oyster aquaculture, and a hatcherie is an environment that
Speaker 2: encourages the oysters to reproduce.
Speaker 1: Hatcheries do that by mimicking and amplifying what happens naturally,
Speaker 1: so they're increasing the yield of each batch.
Speaker 3: We induce them to spawn. That's one way to do it,
Speaker 3: where you just change the temperature for the oysters and
Speaker 3: you convince them that it's spring and so they spawn
Speaker 3: for you. And that should be more romantic than it is.
Speaker 3: But essentially oyster spawning is throwing their gam meats out
Speaker 3: into the ocean or the river, and those gam meats
Speaker 3: have to find each other up in the water.
Speaker 1: Those are called broadcast spawners. In the water, most of
Speaker 1: the spawn would be lost. They're going to be eaten
Speaker 1: by other fish or different things that are in the water,
Speaker 1: or just simply washed away with the tide. But in
Speaker 1: a hatchery, you don't have that same problem.
Speaker 3: And at that point we care the babies called farv
Speaker 3: We care for them for about two weeks and we
Speaker 3: make sure they have all the food and oxygen and
Speaker 3: clean water that they need, and then they go through
Speaker 3: what's called metamorphosis. And so some audience members will remember
Speaker 3: high school biology where a caterpillar becomes the butterflies. So
Speaker 3: that swimming microscopic baby oyster in this case decides to
Speaker 3: stop swimming and it goes through metamorphosis and it goes
Speaker 3: down to the bottom and it wants to attach to something.
Speaker 2: So at the hatchery they're just increasing the survival rate
Speaker 2: of these oysters. And once that process takes place, that's
Speaker 2: what we call a seed, and those are the baby oysters.
Speaker 2: And if you're an oyster farmer, you're gonna then buy
Speaker 2: those seeds for you to grow oysters. And so you
Speaker 2: can buy them, buy the thousands or millions, and then
Speaker 2: you can start to raise them.
Speaker 1: I don't usually like to think about buying things on
Speaker 1: the thousands or millions, but you can buy a thousand
Speaker 1: of those oysters for about ten to twenty dollars.
Speaker 2: Wow, right, that's cheap.
Speaker 1: That is that's incredible value.
Speaker 2: Do I want a little oysters?
Speaker 1: We have to find a place to put them, because
Speaker 1: when you're farming oysters, it seems like they need to
Speaker 1: be in naturally occurring water. Bathtub water won't do.
Speaker 2: Okay, my Brita filter won't work. So those indoor farms
Speaker 2: that we had talked about and imagined all the oysters
Speaker 2: being grown in, they pop into our minds when we
Speaker 2: think about aquaculture, but they aren't really economically viable. And
Speaker 2: that's because when you provide that oyster seed with food
Speaker 2: and oxygen, it grows into a really hungry oyster and
Speaker 2: you need more space that an indoor environment might not
Speaker 2: be able to provide.
Speaker 1: And doctor Walton says, you also need a lot more food.
Speaker 1: Very quickly juvenile oyster becomes feed me see more little shops.
Speaker 3: So you have this like incredible demand for food. These
Speaker 3: shellfish are really good at eating the microscopic plants. And
Speaker 3: so when you start to scale that up and say, okay,
Speaker 3: I'll start a factory for shellfish in the middle of
Speaker 3: the country, and I'm going to try to like raise
Speaker 3: all the food for them under controlled conditions. Technically, I
Speaker 3: guess you could probably do it, but I have a
Speaker 3: very hard time imagining that somebody could turn that into
Speaker 3: something that's sort of an economic reality. And so all
Speaker 3: the shellfish farms that I have seen rely on working
Speaker 3: with the natural environment and being out in coastal waters.
Speaker 2: So the economic forces behind aquaculture push people to use
Speaker 2: offshore locations in natural waters because it's actually more financially feasible,
Speaker 2: and like you were saying, better for the oyster, because
Speaker 2: there's more food available naturally.
Speaker 3: When I'm first growing your seed, they're about one millimeter
Speaker 3: and so that's you can see them, but they're very small.
Speaker 3: They look like grains of sand. You might on that screen.
Speaker 3: You might be putting a quarter of a million to
Speaker 3: half a million of those grains of sand on one
Speaker 3: and the seawater that's flowing by them is going to
Speaker 3: bring them enough food and oxygen that they'll grow.
Speaker 1: And doctor Walton is being modest. Oysters require a lot
Speaker 1: of food and oxygen. You'd need a lot of money
Speaker 1: to keep those bivalves fed. Like if you are going
Speaker 1: to be a farmer, there's places that you can go
Speaker 1: where they've taken little seeds and developed them into seedlings. Yeah,
Speaker 1: and the oyster farmer is buying the seedlings and then
Speaker 1: cultivating those into big It's like.
Speaker 2: What people do for their gardens. When you want to start,
Speaker 2: you know, growing tomatoes or if you want to grow basil,
Speaker 2: maybe you'll go to a nursery that have already started
Speaker 2: growing them in those little plastic containers and then you
Speaker 2: take it home and you plant it in your garden
Speaker 2: and then you can go and start growing your own
Speaker 2: vegetable garden or growing your own are growing whatever you
Speaker 2: can get the bulbs or the seeds that have already
Speaker 2: started to grow, and you put them that someone has
Speaker 2: made a habitat where they can have a healthy beginning
Speaker 2: to their lives. And then you take them as that
Speaker 2: little seedling that has started to grow, you put them
Speaker 2: in a new environment and you continue to nurture them
Speaker 2: into their adulthood.
Speaker 1: And you know, just like a home garden. For oyster farmers,
Speaker 1: there are multiple setups that they can develop to grow
Speaker 1: those oysters. So one of the first examples that doctor
Speaker 1: Walton walked us through is an oyster farm.
Speaker 2: So we're gonna be talking broadly about two different systems
Speaker 2: on bottom farms and off bottom farms, not to be
Speaker 2: confused with bikini bottom farms. So if we're the oyster
Speaker 2: farmers and we have these seeds, we have to think
Speaker 2: about where they go. And on bottom farming, the farmers
Speaker 2: are creating a hospitable area at the bottom of the
Speaker 2: water body for their oysters to grow.
Speaker 3: We get in a boat and we go out of
Speaker 3: the river here and you might just see corner posts
Speaker 3: like poles sticking up out of the water, and I
Speaker 3: would just have to assure you that there are private leases,
Speaker 3: what we call private leases, that are being farmed on
Speaker 3: the bottom there.
Speaker 1: So those seeds that you've purchased, those little baby oysters,
Speaker 1: the kid oysters, you're trying to make your land more
Speaker 1: attractive so that they stay there.
Speaker 3: And those look very much like what a natural oyster
Speaker 3: bed looks like. The typical thing actually that you put
Speaker 3: down would be oyster shell. So you essentially take the
Speaker 3: bottom that was soft mud, and because it's your lease,
Speaker 3: you decide that you're going to improve that bottom by
Speaker 3: putting oyster shell on it. We call that culting. And
Speaker 3: when you culch, you're improving that habitat so that you're
Speaker 3: going to hopefully attract juvenile oysters. We call them spat
Speaker 3: that the spat will settle on your lease, and so
Speaker 3: you essentially getting a productive area.
Speaker 1: So what they're doing is culture. They're trying to improve
Speaker 1: the habitat. This is the equivalent of you adding fertilizer
Speaker 1: or something to your soil in the area where you are.
Speaker 1: Oysters want something to attach to, so you add things
Speaker 1: in onto the bottom of the water where you're going
Speaker 1: to be growing them to make it attractive for the oysters.
Speaker 1: Another form of on bottom farming is when cages or
Speaker 1: mesh containers sit on the seafloor.
Speaker 3: You might see a number of buoys on the surface,
Speaker 3: and that would look a little bit like if we
Speaker 3: were going out and we saw crab traps or lobster
Speaker 3: traps somewhere, and in that case, we'd bring the boat
Speaker 3: up and we would go to those buoys. In there,
Speaker 3: it's a cage or a basket that's sitting on the
Speaker 3: bottom and the oysters are sitting inside those bags, and
Speaker 3: we would bring that. We'd bring that cage up to
Speaker 3: the surface and you'd see that it's full of oysters.
Speaker 2: So it's a mesh container that the oysters are living
Speaker 2: in but since it's sitting on the bottom of the ocean,
Speaker 2: other little friends that are also living in the ocean
Speaker 2: can get in there as well. You know, some uninvited guests,
Speaker 2: but I guess they're welcome.
Speaker 1: Yes, And although it may seem like a nuisance, this
Speaker 1: is actually great because this is evidence that for aquaculture farming,
Speaker 1: and specifically oyster farming, these mesh containers create habitat for
Speaker 1: other critters, so other members of this ecosystem to also
Speaker 1: live and thrive. So, yes, you're doing it for the oysters,
Speaker 1: but the homies are coming along too, and they bringing groceries.
Speaker 3: I was just at of some farms recently and we
Speaker 3: spent time picking up all the eels that had come
Speaker 3: up with it that immediately started to bail out of
Speaker 3: the gauge because they didn't want to be out of
Speaker 3: the water, and so we just scooped them up and
Speaker 3: got them back overboard. So you see lots of marine
Speaker 3: life in amongst these things.
Speaker 1: All right. So that's farming on the bottom of the
Speaker 1: seafloor or a river bit off. Bottom farming is when
Speaker 1: the shellfish grow in a mesh container suspend it near
Speaker 1: the surface of the water.
Speaker 3: The other version that somebody might see would be going
Speaker 3: out on the water and seeing baskets or bags floating
Speaker 3: up at the surface. And so the animals in this
Speaker 3: case are living right below the water surface and they
Speaker 3: have some type of floatation something that's keeping them up
Speaker 3: near the surface, and it's a mesh bag dently, that's
Speaker 3: just holding the animal, the oysters or the clams or
Speaker 3: the scallops, holding it in that bag in the water,
Speaker 3: and then you're letting it feed on the natural microscopic
Speaker 3: plants what we call the phytoplank then let it feed
Speaker 3: on what's in the water. And so because of that,
Speaker 3: they reflect the flavor of where they're grown. But it
Speaker 3: does also mean that you really aren't in a position
Speaker 3: to medicate these things, that you're not in a position
Speaker 3: to feed them something. They are relying on what's in
Speaker 3: the water.
Speaker 1: Now, we didn't cover all the different ways that people
Speaker 1: farm oysters, because there are some in between methods that
Speaker 1: involve being in the water and then out of the water.
Speaker 1: Just know that people are getting to the oysters a
Speaker 1: lot of different ways.
Speaker 2: It's really cool to hear about how these farmers are
Speaker 2: able to farm oysters in so many different ways that
Speaker 2: actually mimic their natural environment.
Speaker 1: This makes a lot more sense than my original idea
Speaker 1: of swimming pools of oysters. The elephant in the room
Speaker 1: here is that most of our oyster reefs and most
Speaker 1: of our environment that existed for oysters to grow on
Speaker 1: and to thrive and flourish is gone. Right, So you
Speaker 1: have farmers creating these artificial reefs with mesh bags and
Speaker 1: cages that are benefiting oysters and other organisms and other
Speaker 1: sea creatures that normally wouldn't have a home. Yeah, Doctor
Speaker 1: Iana Elizabeth Johnson talked about the Billion Oyster Project, which
Speaker 1: has efforts to do that exactly, Yes, right in the
Speaker 1: Hudson Bay. And so we see people doing this in
Speaker 1: the Chesapeake Bay and along the waterways in the Gulf
Speaker 1: in Louisiana and Alabama. These environments in these small aqua
Speaker 1: farming communities have been affected by these changing natural environments,
Speaker 1: and so one of the widespread impacts of the aquaculture
Speaker 1: industry is to restore those communities' ability to make economic
Speaker 1: progress through oyster farming and different shellfish farming.
Speaker 2: We're going to take a quick break, and when we
Speaker 2: get back, we'll talk about the economics around aquaculture and
Speaker 2: its place in a warming planet. On next week's Lab,
Speaker 2: we're talking all about forever chemicals, what they are, where
Speaker 2: there are, and how we can move around them.
Speaker 1: In the meantime, let's get back to the lab. We've
Speaker 1: been talking to doctor Bill Walton about oyster farming and aquaculture.
Speaker 1: Now we're going to consider what aquaculture means for a
Speaker 1: growing population.
Speaker 2: It's a really good question. Does aquaculture fit the bill?
Speaker 2: Can it help us feed the world as our population
Speaker 2: continues to grow?
Speaker 3: The world population is growing, we know that we have
Speaker 3: to provide food and that there's to me just sort
Speaker 3: of the ethical requirement of thinking of ways how do
Speaker 3: we produce that food in a way that also minimizes
Speaker 3: the environmental impact while we do that. When we look
Speaker 3: to the oceans, we know that the total world harvest
Speaker 3: from fisheries has leveled off essentially, I think at least
Speaker 3: for the past two decades, if not more so. The
Speaker 3: world population human population is growing, and we think we
Speaker 3: might be getting as much seafood from the fisheries of
Speaker 3: the world as we.
Speaker 1: Can, getting as much as we can so are we
Speaker 1: saying it's leveled out or is decreasing now did it
Speaker 1: used to be increasing like or do we have more
Speaker 1: people eating fish and they used to so the demand
Speaker 1: I have some questions.
Speaker 2: The number of wild caught fish and shellfish has plateaued,
Speaker 2: so it hasn't stayed, but the amount of fish and
Speaker 2: other organisms harvested through aquaculture has grown, and doctor Walton
Speaker 2: says aquaculture could be a major source of sustainable food.
Speaker 2: You know what I think about a lot, what's that
Speaker 2: the growing population of this world. I think that we
Speaker 2: have to start thinking about how we're going to produce
Speaker 2: enough food as our population is growing, like, we have
Speaker 2: to be able to feed everyone. Of course, oysters aren't
Speaker 2: the perfect solution. One reason is that they're pretty expensive.
Speaker 2: Doctor Walton says we may never get to a place
Speaker 2: where they're affordable for everyone.
Speaker 3: If anybody who likes eating shellfish, let's say raw oysters,
Speaker 3: if you've gone into a raw bar in a city,
Speaker 3: these are expensive items. The typical person might think when
Speaker 3: they think marine aquaculture, they might think salmon, and in
Speaker 3: fact that's relatively low in terms of value total value
Speaker 3: compared to some of the other species that we raise.
Speaker 3: So shellfish are sort of one of the big things
Speaker 3: that we do. I think we working on that. We're
Speaker 3: thinking about ways to have more cost effective ways to
Speaker 3: produce shellfish that provide a food that could be purchased
Speaker 3: at a lower price point, so that it could be
Speaker 3: something that's more commonly available. Like I don't know if
Speaker 3: we'll ever get to the point that we have oyster
Speaker 3: nuggets at McDonald's the way that we have like chicken nuggets,
Speaker 3: but like we should at least think about that as
Speaker 3: a possibility.
Speaker 1: So, not only is the need to produce more food
Speaker 1: a concern, but economic forces are also pushing this innovation
Speaker 1: around aquaculture. It's important to understand how aquaculture and the
Speaker 1: changes to our coastline is impacting people economically. Doctor Walton
Speaker 1: says that US aquaculture is actually not a world leader.
Speaker 1: We're currently sixteenth in the world in terms of production,
Speaker 1: and he says that's surprising given how much coastline we have.
Speaker 1: But another interesting aspect of this is that shellfish aquaculture
Speaker 1: is happening out in the environment, not on private property.
Speaker 3: You're doing this out in shared waters. As a community,
Speaker 3: you need to decide that you want to do it.
Speaker 3: It has to be permitted that said, of the aquaculture
Speaker 3: that we do do in the US, in the marine environment,
Speaker 3: it is dominated by harvest of oysters and clams and muscles.
Speaker 2: Okay, so we're not going to solve world hunger with oysters,
Speaker 2: but aquaculture technology could help develop more food and sustainably.
Speaker 3: Oysters are a really healthy food, right, and when you
Speaker 3: think about what it takes to produce that protein, it's
Speaker 3: probably a good choice as a society to be thinking
Speaker 3: about that. I'd like to get there, but we're not there.
Speaker 1: So we have this situation where as doctor Walton said,
Speaker 1: we have a pretty pricey food, oysters. In this case,
Speaker 1: let's be in sold to restaurants where people are buying
Speaker 1: them for two or three dollars per oyster, and sometimes
Speaker 1: that's the happy hour deal. So how do you feel
Speaker 1: good about cultivating something that's so expensive.
Speaker 3: The way I feel good about that is not only
Speaker 3: the environmental impact that I think is as I said,
Speaker 3: I think is a net positive for the coastal environment.
Speaker 3: So I want to encourage shellfish farms in our local
Speaker 3: coastal waters, but I also think it is a way
Speaker 3: of exporting income from metropolitan centers out to these rural
Speaker 3: coastal communities, and again, how do you get jobs, Like,
Speaker 3: if you're a nineteen year old in a rural coastal community,
Speaker 3: there needs to be something that you can look to
Speaker 3: as a way that you think that you know, you
Speaker 3: might be able to pay the bills and make a career.
Speaker 3: And so this is one reason I feel okay still
Speaker 3: about a lot of USh shellfish aquaculture being focused at
Speaker 3: a white tablecloth type restaurant is because I still look
Speaker 3: at those communities that actually have shellfish aquaculture are almost
Speaker 3: always rural and small because they're the areas that also
Speaker 3: have some of the best water quality. And so to me,
Speaker 3: there's a lot of value in that.
Speaker 2: When doctor Walton first got into shellfish aquaculture, one thing
Speaker 2: that stood out to him was that oyster growers were
Speaker 2: really invested in water quality and he thinks that's a
Speaker 2: great aspect of the industry.
Speaker 1: And based on what he says so far, that makes sense. Right.
Speaker 1: Good water is important for these communities livelihoods.
Speaker 3: To have somebody come in and be literally invested in
Speaker 3: the water quality arguing for it. I just love that.
Speaker 3: I love that we have essentially stewards of our coastal waters. Yes,
Speaker 3: they're growing something and they're harvesting something there, but they're
Speaker 3: also really some of our best advocates for water quality
Speaker 3: out there as well.
Speaker 2: It's such an amazing point to make and I think
Speaker 2: really important, and I'm glad that doctor Walton highlighted it.
Speaker 2: These farms and cultivation areas affect people and communities locally.
Speaker 3: I think of places that I've worked, for example, with shrimping,
Speaker 3: and the grandparent who runs the shrimping boat is not
Speaker 3: encouraging their grandchildren to become shrimpers. When those communities start
Speaker 3: to have that movement away from fisheries, what happens to them.
Speaker 2: Doctor Walton says that aquaculture is a way for people
Speaker 2: to stay involved and work in coastal places, many of
Speaker 2: which are rural, and we're seeing more and more rural
Speaker 2: communities turning to aquaculture as an industry.
Speaker 3: I think there is again this sort of social element
Speaker 3: of if we can find ways that people can make
Speaker 3: a living working on the water to provide food in
Speaker 3: a way that's environmentally sustainable, that keeps those communities thriving
Speaker 3: and alive. Honestly, I think the biggest part of it
Speaker 3: for me is that it's something that's giving communities the
Speaker 3: option of do they want to adopt another way of
Speaker 3: bringing in food from the sea that presents ways for
Speaker 3: young people in that community to go have careers and
Speaker 3: build a life there. Then lastly, I just amazed that
Speaker 3: shellfish aquaculture gives you the ability to raise food and
Speaker 3: help income while also helping the environment. Like I genuinely
Speaker 3: believe that the way that we practice shellfish aquaculture in
Speaker 3: the United States is not just relatively environmentally benign. I
Speaker 3: think that a lot of our coastal waters are better
Speaker 3: off with shellfish aquaculture in it.
Speaker 1: Doctor Walton is saying this is a sustainable industry that
Speaker 1: can bolster rural economies and improve the environment. Sounds almost
Speaker 1: too good to be true, right.
Speaker 2: Remember, all of these organisms are working in a beautiful
Speaker 2: symphony together and they balance each other out within their ecosystems.
Speaker 2: If an oyster farmer is not appropriately managing their oyster
Speaker 2: farm and they are creating all of these oysters, these
Speaker 2: oysters are eating up all of the nutrients that are
Speaker 2: in their surrounding area, and what that does is create
Speaker 2: an unstable environment for other organisms. Because these oysters are
Speaker 2: you know, like hungry, hungry hippos, they're eating up all
Speaker 2: the food, all the nutrients, and so that means that
Speaker 2: there are other organisms that will suffer.
Speaker 1: And that's just one example of the importance of this balance.
Speaker 1: You know, this lab, we're focusing on shellfish aquaculture, but
Speaker 1: there have been concerns about finfish aquaculture, so growing fish
Speaker 1: that have fans, so thinksmon and catfish and what that
Speaker 1: can mean for other wildfish in the area. We have
Speaker 1: more info about that in the show notes, so be
Speaker 1: sure to check it out at Dope labspodcast dot com.
Speaker 2: Well, there are some other factors to consider when thinking
Speaker 2: about oysters, specifically climate change. We act doctor Walton how
Speaker 2: climate change has impacted aquaculture and how the industry has
Speaker 2: to adjust, and it's really interesting. In some areas, warmer
Speaker 2: conditions might actually benefit the farms at least in the
Speaker 2: short term.
Speaker 3: There may be longer growing seasons, et cetera, et cetera.
Speaker 3: But when we think about climate change, that change is
Speaker 3: hard and certainly rising temperatures can be stressful for oysters
Speaker 3: in certain environments, and we know that that affects how
Speaker 3: much dissolved oxygen is in the water, so there's concern
Speaker 3: about that and that by the way that could function
Speaker 3: differently at the surface of the water versus the bottom
Speaker 3: of the water. There might be ways to adapt to
Speaker 3: the but there could also be ways that people are
Speaker 3: currently growing shellfish that may not be as successful as
Speaker 3: they've been.
Speaker 1: So climate change isn't just directly affecting whether shellfish survive
Speaker 1: and how they survive, but it's also changing the farming
Speaker 1: techniques that farmers are using, and they have to change
Speaker 1: if they want to continue operating in this industry.
Speaker 2: This is a little complicated. Rising temperatures alone may not
Speaker 2: pose a problem for oysters, but other changes caused by
Speaker 2: climate shifts could, like heavier rainfall. Because these oyster farms
Speaker 2: are so integrated into the natural environment, they're sensitive to
Speaker 2: shifts in the weather. Doctor Walton says rain changes things,
Speaker 2: and also if it gets warm, it changes things.
Speaker 3: So oysters are pretty good at tolerating changes in salinity.
Speaker 3: But if you are also raising the temperature on those
Speaker 3: oysters at the same time that they're getting stressed by
Speaker 3: the freshwater inputs, we have seen mortalities from those combinations,
Speaker 3: and certainly that's been associated with the idea that that
Speaker 3: could belimate change. The other big thing that you hear
Speaker 3: with climate change, of course, is ocean acidification. Of course,
Speaker 3: for something that builds a shell, there is a ton
Speaker 3: of concern about what happens as the ocean's pH drops.
Speaker 1: pH is an indicator of how acidic or alkaline water is,
Speaker 1: and on average the ocean is about twenty five percent
Speaker 1: more acidic than it was a couple centuries ago. Now
Speaker 1: that's bad news for marine life because the acid that's
Speaker 1: forming in that water decreases the amount of carbonate that's
Speaker 1: available for them to build shells and skeletons. Doctor Walton says,
Speaker 1: the larvae are really vulnerable to these changes.
Speaker 3: If I to get to a reef and the oysters
Speaker 3: were dissolving away, that's pretty obvious, right. I'm not saying
Speaker 3: that that's happening, but you could see that microscopic larvae
Speaker 3: having problems in the water that you can't see is
Speaker 3: a harder problem to identify in the first place. So
Speaker 3: I think that's one of the things that some hatcheries.
Speaker 3: There are some shellfish hatcheries now that are treating their
Speaker 3: water to ensure that the larvae have optimal conditions and
Speaker 3: are not challenged by some of the changes that have happened.
Speaker 2: That's such a great point that doctor Walton is making
Speaker 2: that we can't really see this lack of carbonate in
Speaker 2: the water because we only see the shellfish that make it.
Speaker 2: We don't know which ones aren't making it. And it's
Speaker 2: interesting that hatcheries are trying to treat their water so
Speaker 2: that larvae have a better chance of survival. Doctor Walton
Speaker 2: said that this kind of aquaculture can actually benefit habitats.
Speaker 1: And if we think about it, oysters are solving a
Speaker 1: lot of problems. Some of them we can't see, and
Speaker 1: some of them we can't. But doctor Walton gave us
Speaker 1: a couple of really good examples.
Speaker 2: Shellfish are actually really good at cleaning up water.
Speaker 3: The other thing that I think has to happen with
Speaker 3: that is that they do eat that microscopic plants and
Speaker 3: they turn it into oyster. That to me is very
Speaker 3: similar to when you put sheep out into an overgrown
Speaker 3: pasture and they graze the pasture down. Shellfish are essentially that.
Speaker 1: Another example is a lack of habitat for other organisms
Speaker 1: that are living in the water. This reminds me of
Speaker 1: our episode on biodiversity. I mean, we've already talked about
Speaker 1: it before, but I'll bring it up again where we
Speaker 1: talked about how all of these organisms, all of these
Speaker 1: animals are not living in a vacuum. We all live
Speaker 1: together and we are all serving a purpose, you know.
Speaker 1: So the fact that oysters are their habitats are being
Speaker 1: ruined and they're not able to survive like they normally would,
Speaker 1: that is affecting other sea creatures water creatures in a
Speaker 1: really negative way. So what are some of the solutions
Speaker 1: that can help us get to a better place so
Speaker 1: that we can maintain our sea life restore it. Yeah,
Speaker 1: out in the bay, Bay, Baby in the bay.
Speaker 3: Well, it turns out that the shellfish farm doesn't look
Speaker 3: like an oyster reef to us, but a lot of
Speaker 3: the organisms in the water perceive it is very similar.
Speaker 3: If you're a little juvenile blue crab or a little
Speaker 3: juvenile fish or shrimp, those are tough places to make
Speaker 3: a living because it's you have nothing to protect you.
Speaker 3: There's no safe corner.
Speaker 1: So the oyster farms become the habitat that protects those
Speaker 1: other sea creatures.
Speaker 3: And if you think about it, the shellfish farm that
Speaker 3: is out for example, on the eastern shore of Virginia,
Speaker 3: those clams or those oysters are filtering that water the
Speaker 3: same way that a reef would be. They eat the
Speaker 3: excess food out of the water, which potentially can help
Speaker 3: make the water clearer. And you know, beyond clearer water
Speaker 3: just looking cleaner to us, the other environmental benefit of
Speaker 3: clearer water is that sunlight gets through and then we
Speaker 3: can see more things like aquatic vegetation growing on the bottom,
Speaker 3: which we also know is a great nurse. We havebita listen.
Speaker 1: I know we've said it before TT, but I think
Speaker 1: we got to say it again. Oysters really feel like
Speaker 1: the true MVPs.
Speaker 2: Honestly, they're doing so much for the culture, the aquaculture, and.
Speaker 1: You know, human efforts to improve the environment. Often we
Speaker 1: don't get it right. We don't always get it right.
Speaker 1: It's usually tied to some type of economic benefit, you know,
Speaker 1: but it feels like here, I mean, I could be
Speaker 1: missing something, but it feels like it's a win win. Okay,
Speaker 1: it's time for the one thing.
Speaker 2: Okay, Zee, what's our one thing this week?
Speaker 1: Our one thing this week is really capturing the vibe
Speaker 1: of this lab and it is an Instagram page Black
Speaker 1: Girls the letter in Oysters. So black Girls in Oysters,
Speaker 1: and this page is giving you all the vibes, all
Speaker 1: the tips, recipes, suggestions. If you are into oysters like
Speaker 1: we are, they recently had a real and it says
Speaker 1: all the dudes and don'ts around eating oysters and I
Speaker 1: just loved it. That's it for Lab seventy three. Be
Speaker 1: sure to let us know what you think. Call us
Speaker 1: at two zero two five six seven seven zero two eight.
Speaker 1: Remember you can always give us an idea for a
Speaker 1: different lab you think we should do this semester, you
Speaker 1: can text or call at two zero two five six
Speaker 1: seven seven zero two eight.
Speaker 2: And don't forget that there is so much more to
Speaker 2: dig into on our website. There'll be a cheap heat
Speaker 2: for today's lab, additional links and resources in the show notes.
Speaker 2: Plus you can sign up for our newsletter check it
Speaker 2: out at Dope labspodcast dot com. Special thanks to today's
Speaker 2: guest expert, doctor Bill Walton. You can find doctor Walton
Speaker 2: at doctor Underscore Oyster, and you can find us on
Speaker 2: Twitter and Instagram at Dope Labs podcast.
Speaker 1: TT's on Twitter and Instagram at dr Underscore t Sho.
Speaker 2: And you can find Zakia at Z said. So Dope
Speaker 2: Labs is a Spotify original production from Mega Ownmedia Group.
Speaker 1: Our producers are Jenny Ratilit Mass and Lydia Smith of
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Speaker 2: Editing and sound design by Rob Smercy.
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